61% of healthcare professionals rate ROI of EHRs as 'poor,' 'terrible'

Following the implementation of the electronic health record (EHR) incentivizing Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act of 2009, healthcare organizations invested heavily in their EHR systems—but many feel the return on investment (ROI) has been underwhelming.

The survey, conducted by Health Catalyst and presented at the 4^th Healthcare Analytics Summit, was presented to show the shift from fee-for-service to value-based reimbursement. The survey showcased current views on current analytic software’s capabilities and how this technology could improve EHR utilization.

Findings included:

• 61 percent of professionals viewed their ROI on EHR implementation after the 2009 bill as terrible (19 percent) or poor (42 percent)—29 percent stated it was mediocre, 9 percent said positive and 1 percent said superb.
• 83 percent of respondents believed analytics were the future of healthcare, claiming they were extremely important.
• 50 percent of respondents ranked their organizations use of analytics as basic, mainly with data integration and curation.
• 26 percent ranked their organizations as capable of enabling experimentation, open source coding and visual analytics.
• 17 percent ranked their organizations analytics as capable of incorporating machine learning and change management.
• Only 5 percent of organizations were able to reach advanced analytics with natural language processes, event stream processing, work design and deep learning.
• 76 percent of respondents were optimistic (35 percent) about or advocates (41 percent) for the potential of analytics.