Healthcare IT Update

Most Hospital CIOs Cite EMR as Top Priority

But a new survey also indicates their direct reports aren’t downloading the message. Getting electronic medical records systems off the ground in their hospitals is the most pressing concern for chief information officers, according to a recently reported survey, but that priority is not making its way down the totem pole to the managers and directors in their IT departments.

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HITECH: Physicians Must Meet 25 Criteria To Achieve ‘Meaningful Use’

While waiting for CMS guidelines, some practices have dragged heels on EHR adoption Practices that have been waiting for CMS to define the term “meaningful use” are finally in luck. But as is always the case when the feds are involved, don’t look for a quick one-sentence definition. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Bill of 2009 (ARRA) offers annual bonuses to practices that show “meaningful use” of electronic health records, and in 2015, practices that aren’t showing meaningful use will face penalties. However, the government was slow to issue a definition of the term “meaningful use,” causing some physicians to delay  adoption of EHRs because they didn’t want to risk being a non-meaningful user. On Dec. 29, CMS and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology announced that the definition was finally available for public comment. “CMS’s proposed regulation would define and specify how to demonstrate ‘meaningful…

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STRATEGIES: Bridge the IT-Clinician Gap with 3 Field-Tested Tactics

Don’t forget this crucial step AFTER implementation. You can spend stimulus cash on a shiny new information technology system but it’ll be money down the drain if you don’t bring your staff on board. Glide over implementation speed bumps by engaging staff in the process and head off resistance to change. Avoid this: Across all sectors, 40 percent of IT projects fail or are abandoned, related Linda Reed, RN, MBA, VP/CIO of Atlantic Health in Morris Plains, N.J., at the April Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference in Chicago. Often, failure stems from an inadequate project management process or improper alignment with the organization’s culture. Beat the statistics with these threestrategies for bringing IT, vendors, and staff closer together. 1. Gauge Staff’s Readiness Assessing staff’s readiness to transition to a new technology is really a “code word” for gauging resistance, said Reed.

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