The past several months have been tumultuous for health IT—OK, the past several years—but this year in particular has been a stressful time for health IT leaders. Health IT execs have been struggling with intractable issues in just about every area in which they work, including hiring, technology investment, health IT implementation, getting financing for what they need, addressing emerging technologies like mobile health and more.
Now, 2014 is coming along, and things are getting even hotter. Just look at these developments:
MEANINGFUL USE
Moving up from Meaningful Use Stage 1 to Meaningful Use Stage 2 has been more difficult for doctors than many had expected, with nearly a fifth dropping out of the MU program this year. And with rewards being slim and difficulty high for achieving MU 2 compliance, that's little wonder.
ICD-10
Gearing up for ICD-10 is proving to be more difficult than many providers had expected, especially given the fact that vendors are behind in supporting the new codes. Providers will be pretty much stuck if there vendors don't get their act together very quickly, as the October 2014 deadline is roaring down on us.
IT HIRING
As with last year, organizations are struggling to hire enough top health IT experts to meet key goals, including but not limited to HIE build-outs, Meaningful Use compliance, ACO participation and population health tool development. Getting even a few of those things partially done is an intimidating task at best.
POST-ACA PATIENTS
With the income from newly-insured patients using health reform policies somewhat unsure, just how many patients will have $5000 to $10,000 deductibles? It's very difficult to tell how much capital health leaders can invest in the IT to support this population.
In theory, we have a new champion on the way who will stride forward boldly and smack down some of the key health IT problems which have remained stuck in place for some years down. New Orleans Health Commissioner Karen DeSalvo, MD, who won kudos for her work in the post-Katrina years, will be taking the reins of the Office of the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology in mid-January.
The truth, however, is that no matter how skillful DeSalvo is at running down high-profile of health IT problems, we're still facing something of a traffic jam next year. Healthcare providers are going to be twisting themselves in knots trying to balance the many priorities being thrown at them this coming year. By the end of 2014, we should certainly have some interesting stories to tell.
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