Dive Brief:
- Intermountain's concerns about Meaningful Use, in part, arise from the fact that the system has begun transitioning from its own EMR system to an EMR from Cerner, and that it's on likely to have the new software running in all its locations for the end of this year, CIO Mark Probst told Health Leaders Media.
- Intermountain is not the only large system that has made the choice to meet 2014 attestation. According to Jacob Reider, Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT Chief Medical Officer, several other large health systems are reporting similar concerns.
- This is not surprising, Reider said, because meeting the Stage 2 requirements is proving to be more difficult for large systems in smaller providers, word generally "not as concerned" and "not quite as sophisticated" as the larger systems.
Dive Insight:
There's something not quite right about the situation. Yes, large organizations have infinitely more complicated implementations to manage. On the other hand, they have the capital and the staff to make things happen that small organizations cannot. If even a large player like Intermountain can't meet Stage 2 deadlines -- or perhaps doesn't care to -- I'd say it's a black eye for the Meaningful Use program as a whole.