Survey: Hospitals only 50% compliant with EHR requirements

U.S. hospitals are only halfway to qualifying for Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) draft rules, which could equate to EHR incentive payments for up-to-date hospitals, according to a survey released this week by IT company Computer Sciences’ (CSC) Healthcare Group.

According to the Falls Church, Va.-headquartered CSC, the survey revealed broad gaps between government expectations and the healthcare industry’s ability to meet those expectations.

CSC surveyed executives from 58 hospitals and integrated health delivery networks of all sizes across the U.S. to report respondents’ readiness for the Health IT for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act incentives based on 50 indicators grouped into five general categories:

• Use of a certified product;
• Current use of capabilities required for meaningful use;
• Standards adoption;
• Quality management; and
• Reporting, and privacy and security protection.

Hospitals have the highest readiness scores for privacy and security protection, while the use of required EHR capabilities is furthest behind, the report concluded.

The CSC report’s findings showed only two-thirds of responding hospitals have identified gaps in their current systems to meet the requirements for meaningful use. Only one quarter of the responding hospitals meet at least 70 percent of the readiness criteria from the survey.

The survey showed that 70 percent of responding hospitals have systems capable of supporting computerized physician order entry (CPOE), but only 8 percent have CPOE throughout the hospital with at least 75 percent of orders being entered by physicians. No hospital under 100 beds had CPOE up and running in even two units and none of the midsized hospitals (100 - 300 beds) had the system up and running throughout the hospital.

Additional findings included:

• Smaller hospitals have lower readiness scores especially for use of required applications and quality reporting;
• 54 percent are using the latest software version of their EHR product, which indicates upgrading might be required to meet the criteria for meaningful use;
• Although 89 percent report on core quality measures, only half capture the majority of the required data from their EHR system;
• The majority (98 percent) have a policy in place to limit the disclosure of protected health information, but only 52 percent employ encryption technologies to render data unreadable or unusable in the case of unauthorized access;
• Only 40 percent report that there is clear and broad awareness of the new civil and criminal penalties under the ARRA.