Survey offers insights on HL7 professionals
HL7 professionals have strong experience but low tenure and about one-third of healthcare organizations have no staff retention policy, according to the results of The 2012 HL7 Interface Technology Survey.
The 1,350 participants live and work in the U.S. and are employed by healthcare organizations using HL7 interfaces.
Sixty percent of respondents have 10 or more years of experience in healthcare but 48 percent have less than three years tenure in their current organization. Aside from the one-third of organizations with no staff retention policy, another 23 percent said they are working on a policy.
Respondents are using a wide range of interface engines. Meanwhile, 49 percent said that while they are utilizing their interface engine for what it was initially intended, they know it has more capability they are not using.
Survey results indicated a lack of organization-wide awareness of key industry initiatives. Although organizations are achieving and advancing toward Meaningful Use, 31 percent of respondents said they don’t know their organization’s preparedness to achieve Meaningful Use and another 4 percent don’t even know what Meaningful Use is.
Information security impacts everything a healthcare organization does, according to the survey results. While only 2 percent said information security was one of their top three priorities, 89 percent of CIOs and 90 percent of IT managers said that information security is either integral to at least one of their organization’s top priorities or it is their top priority.
Healthcare integration continues to be integral to every organization and increasing in activities. Ninety percent of HL7 professionals said that integration was either the top priority, integral to a top priority or integral to all of their priorities. Sixty percent said their integration activities will increase over the next 12 months and less than 10 percent of respondents said their healthcare integration activities will decrease at all.
Core Health Technologies conducted the survey during a two-week period in August. Access the complete survey results on the company's website.
Editor
Editor Beth earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and master’s in health communication. She has worked in hospital, academic and publishing settings over the past 20 years. Beth joined TriMed in 2005, as editor of CMIO and Clinical Innovation + Technology. When not covering all things related to health IT, she spends time with her husband and three children.