With the Joint Commission and CMS emphasizing the value of computerized physician order entry (CPOE), health IT managers and CIOs have started to plan rollouts. The thing is, they're likely to get burned if they underestimate the size of the job, suggests a new survey from the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives.
Hospitals certainly have an incentive to take on the challenge. If they roll out CPOE by 2011 for all order types--meeting the "meaningful use" standard currently proposed--they'll be able to take full advantage of the EMR incentives offered through the new stimulus law.
But this could be a tall order. The CHIME study of CIO attitudes toward CPOE, which was conducted last month, concluded that most CIOs think CPOE implementations are likely to drag out for years. More than one-third (34.5 percent) of the CIOs said that it could take three years to get CPOE systems into production, while only 8.5 percent said full adoption could happen within one year.
Small wonder, then that the AHA, the Federation of American Hospitals and other groups have said that a 2011 deadline isn't going to work. They're arguing that rushing to meet such a deadline could lead to other problems, including medical errors that could cause harm to patients.
To learn more about this study:
- read this Health Leaders Media piece
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