Health IT prescriptions and prognoses

Mary Stevens, Editor

Build a best practices-based healthcare IT platform, get results, including a solid ROI, says a recent McKinsey Quarterly analysis. Healthcare providers that create such an IT platform to house and share medical records, manage hospital resources more transparently, and define precise guidelines for authorized tests and procedures can generate significant operating efficiencies.

Mandated upgrades to health IT will demand heavy investments by providers, but will help them minimize waste and standardize best medical practices, the authors suggested. Productivity and resource savings often pay back the initial IT investment within two to four years, they said. At the same time, radical simplification of architecture is cited as a key success factor among healthcare IT implementations.

This is neither the first nor the only analysis that indicates heath IT is worth its expense, and is preaching to most of the choir among CMIOs; the arguments continue about who pays and how to go about it. Federal incentive plans for health IT implementation get a guarded prognosis from some executives. For example, CHIME members who responded to a survey, released earlier this month, were cautiously optimistic about their chances for achieving stimulus funding under the HITECH portion of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Expectations vary depending on the type of healthcare organization and its size. For example, 38 percent of CIO respondents from academic medical centers expect to qualify for stimulus funding within the first six months, compared with only 22 percent of CIOs at community hospitals. Two-thirds of survey respondents from hospitals with 100 to 199 beds anticipate getting funding within the first two fiscal years that the Stage 1 criteria are in effect.

Interestingly, the relaxed final standards for qualifying for stimulus funding will have little to no impact on improving providers’ chances, according to 75 percent of the respondents. About 40 percent of respondents say they are well-positioned to achieve meaningful use with their current IT strategy and existing applications, but slightly more than half say they are accelerating their plans to implement EHRs or are re-evaluating current health IT applications to obtain incentive funding.

In addition to shared records and more transparent operations, the ONC has another prediction for the meaningful use requirements: health IT staff shortages. Another 50,000 health IT workers will be needed during the next five years to satisfy EHR meaningful use criteria, according to ONC estimates.

What’s working and what isn’t in your organization? Let me know at mstevens@trimedmedia.com

Mary Stevens, editor