Survey: Hospital execs doubt EHR implementation funding

While almost half of business administrators at hospitals or health systems say they are more than halfway to completing full EHR system deployment, many have doubts about the level of funding their organizations have planned to support it, according to the results of a poll conducted by U.S. audit, tax and advisory services firm KPMG.

Forty-nine percent of hospital and health system business leaders who participated in a KPMG poll last month said they were more than 50 percent of the way to completing EHR deployment, the New York City-based KPMG stated. The KPMG Healthcare & Pharmaceutical Institute conducted a webcast on EHR deployment best practices in May. The results reflect responses from more than 220 hospital and health system administrators who self selected to participate in the webcast poll.

At the same time, the survey found that 48 percent of health system business leaders said they are only somewhat comfortable with the level of budgeting their organization has planned for EHR deployment. Nine percent said they weren't comfortable at all while 18 percent said they were unsure. Only 25 percent said they were very comfortable.

"There is a level of uneasiness as to whether there is adequate funding to complete these projects," the firm stated in a release. "In most organizations, EHR deployment will most likely be one of the most transformational projects that they've ever undertaken, as well as one of the largest investments outside of the construction of a new hospital they've ever made. Yet, many organizations view EHR as just an IT project and that may be why we are seeing multiple extensions to scope, timeline and budget."

In terms of resource strategies used to complete EHR deployment, 46 percent of hospital and health system leaders indicated that they are using a multiple resource strategy. This was followed by leveraging existing staff (16 percent); hiring new or additional staff (13 percent); and securing third-party assistance (10 percent). Fifteen percent said they didn't know.

The report asked the poll takers whether their organization had a mobility access strategy that provides clinicians and patients with 'anywhere' access to EHRs/data, and about half of the leaders said they didn't know.