Intermountain would miss 36 of 48 current MU requirements

An organization like Utah's Intermountain Healthcare that has years of experience with an EMR and even serves as a development site for GE Healthcare's Centricity system should have no problem demonstrating "meaningful use" and earning federal subsidies, right?

Guess again. "At this date, Intermountain could not meet 36 of the 48 meaningful use requirements," CMO Dr. Brent Wallace says in a New York Times article. Wallace believes that the proposed rules are "too rigid, requiring too much change in too short a time."

Others hold similar views. "The criteria for achieving meaningful use of electronic health records are too aggressive," Dr. John R. Maese, representing the New York chapter of the American College of Physicians, tells the Times. "The time frame to adopt the technology is unrealistic."

Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, N.Y., is going to have to upgrade its existing systems both within the hospital and at 75 other care sites to earn the bonus payments. "[E]ven as an early adopter of this technology, we find ourselves struggling to meet the federal standards," explains Dr. Steven M. Safyer, Montefiore's president.

The rather one-sided story doesn't look at organizations that are against lowering the standards, but it's safe to say that the current proposal has more opponents than supporters. HHS promises the final rules by the end of June.

For more:
- check out this New York Times story