Dive Brief:
- Despite meaningful use funds being available to sweeten the pot, about 6% of US hospitals have yet to convert even the most basic ancillary services—such as labs, pharmacy and radiology—to an EMR platform, according to the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS).
- HIMSS tracks the maturity of a hospital's EMR installation with a seven stage adoption model. The providers not participating or developing their EMRs further tend to be smaller organizations, according to HIMSS.
- That being said, many other hospitals are making great progress with EMRs. 37% of hospitals are in the final three stages of adoption, and that percentage is climbing rapidly, HIMSS reports. Almost 3% of hospitals are in the final stage of EMR adoption, and don't use paper charts to deliver care.
Dive Insight:
Though providers face Medicare penalties next year if they can't demonstrate at least basic meaningful use, some still feel that the cost of buying and implementing an EMR is too high. Smaller rural hospitals may also lack the IT staff needed to support a new EMR. It seems likely that the 6% of EMR-less hospitals won't change much until they are given special grants above and beyond meaningful use to help them with the unique challenges.