Tips from EHR traiblazers
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| Mary Stevens, Editor |
The question on almost everyone’s mind is: “How can my eligible professionals get $44,000, and how can my hospitals get the roughly $2 million per year for four years by using certified systems in a meaningful way?” This is how John Halamka, MD, CIO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and CIO of Harvard Medical School, phrased it during a webinar this week.
Several groups offered some answers to this question. Pre-meaningful use buyers of EHR systems have blazed a trail for new customers, and what was a wild market is now somewhat tamer. Although customers face fewer unpleasant surprises from vendors when purchasing and implementing EHRs, according to a KLAS study, buyer beware is still the rule.
The word from 146 healthcare organizations that have recent bought an EMR? Epic received high ratings for delivering what was promised, contracting and cost. Epic projects have the largest scope of any vendor, according to the report. For Meditech, no surprise for customers is good news—buyers cited little variation between what they expected and what they received in the Meditech contract, delivery and post-live selling events. However, clients cited Meditech’s lack of proactive help in getting their money’s worth, KLAS stated.
CHIME has added its advice to would-be implementers in the form of a guidebook, “The CIO’s Guide to Implementing EHRs in the HITECH Era.”
Like the KLAS study, CHIME’s guidebook urges customers to measure, as accurately as possible, the cost of achieving meaningful use of EHRs versus the expected payback in terms of stimulus fund payments. Although every organization’s EHR implementation saga will be different, no deployment will be successful unless physicians buy in.
An additional road map for meaningful use came from CMS earlier this week: a 19-page letter intended to clarify the expectations for states with regard to activities and potential uses of the 90/10 matching funds provided by the EHR Incentive Program.
CMS strongly encouraged states to collaborate with other state-level and local partners in the design, development and procurement of systems needed to administer their EHR Incentive Programs. “Doing so would make more effective use of both CMS’ and state’s share of the cost and would shorten the timeline for actually dispersing incentive payments to eligible providers,” the letter stated.
Organizations trying to get a bead on the meaningful use incentives should follow this advice as well.
~Mary Stevens, editor
mstevens@trimedmedia.com