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E-Health Systems: For Love or Money?

 |  By gshaw@healthleadersmedia.com  
   January 18, 2011

Healthcare providers are marching toward certification and meaningful use of their electronic health systems and thinking about how they'll spend the financial rewards for doing so. But are they doing it for the love of e-health technology? Or are they doing it because the government is all but forcing them to?

A recent survey conducted by the HealthLeaders Media Intelligence Unit, E-Health Systems: Opportunities and Obstacles, suggests healthcare leaders are feeling positive that they'll meet meaningful use requirements. In fact, 91% said they will be ready by 2016 at the latest. And 41% said their systems are already certified by an approved ONC certifying body.

That jibes with data from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, which found about 80% of the nation's hospitals and 41% of office-based physicians plan to cash in on as much as $27 billion in federal incentives for adoption and meaningful use of electronic health records technology.

And while this all sounds like good news, one question remains—are electronic health systems everything that the industry had hoped for?

Perhaps not so much.

In the HealthLeaders report, hospital and health system leaders rate their satisfaction with the cost, value, interoperability, ease of use, speed, responsiveness, and downtime of their systems. They also rated their satisfaction with functions such as chart review, patient portals, physician portals, decision support, and the ability to conduct data-driven research. In every category fewer than 57% of respondents were either strongly or somewhat satisfied.

The satisfaction rates were a little better at physician practices and clinics—but not by a whole lot.

(Check out page 14 and 16 of the report for all of the data on leaders' satisfaction with a variety of EHS components, broken down by setting.)

And that begs the question—are providers pushing forward with electronic health systems just to get the money and to avoid penalties for failing to meet meaningful use? Or do they believe that the technology will ultimately get better and have a positive impact on outcomes? A sampling of provider responses shows that some are motivated by the financial carrots and sticks, but others believe it is the right thing to do.

"The penalties [for failing to achieve meaningful use] would close our practice," wrote one respondent, the administrator of a physician organization.

"Failure is not an option," said the VP of finance at a small hospital. "We must achieve meaningful use if we are to keep our doors open and to remain a viable business."

On the other hand, 89% of leaders say that e-health systems will improve quality of care industrywide within 10 years, and many talked about the benefits to patients and quality of care.

"The importance of knowing the patient's entire story outweighs 'competition,'" said the CNO of a midsized hospital. "It is also important to better aggregate statistical and demographic information for our area to better address and provide appropriate preventive care and education."

You can read the full HealthLeaders Media Intelligence Unit report, E-Health Systems: Opportunities and Obstacles, online here.

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