Reiterating his belief that the federal mandates for the healthcare industry are "too much, too soon," Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center CIO John Halamka predicted that 80 percent of hospitals will fail to successfully attest to Meaningful Use Stage 2 within the allotted time.
He told those attending the iHT2 Health IT Summit in Boston this week that he expects many provider organizations to opt out of the program, according to Healthcare Informatics.
Halamka (pictured), who will retain his role as vice chair of the Health IT Standards Committee amid its "evolution," also said healthcare organizations in Massachusetts plan to keep to their Oct. 1, 2014 timeline for implementing ICD-10, even though the deadline has been pushed back a year.
Earlier this month, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services canceled end-to-end ICD-10 testing; regardless, the American Hospital Association is urging organizations to spend the extra year conducting more thorough tests.
During his speech, Halamka had words for each of the 19 recommendations for Meaningful Use Stage 3, saying 80 percent of them present some sort of workflow, vendor burden or standards readiness issue. For example, he pointed to the requirement that visit summaries be actionable and relevant for patients.
"I don't know about you, but I don't know what actionable and relevant means. ... You can't measure this stuff," he said.
Halamka has warned that even "well resourced" health institutions will have a hard time complying with the various health IT mandates and that CIOs' focus this year will be on "institutional survival."
To learn more:
- read the article