A couple weeks ago, the health IT world was taken aback when Intermountain Healthcare CIO Marc Probst announced that the organization probably would not attest to Stage 2 of the meaningful use program this year.
Intermountain, which is in the process of transitioning from its own electronic record to one from Cerner, says that it's unlikely to have its new software running in all of its locations by the end of 2014, and moreover, does not feel that the organization can attest and maintain current levels of patient safety.
But is that really what's going on? Doubtless, Intermountain didn't make the hugely expensive decision to bring in Cerner across its entire network overnight. In other words, if executives thought attesting to Meaningful Use Stage 2 was important for their organization, they would have made provisions to do so, rather than bring in Cerner at a time which nixed the chances of attesting.
No, I think there's more to Intermountain's bringing in Cerner than meets the eye. Intermountain is less putting off meaningful use attestation than it is bringing in an EMR that can meet future needs. And its peers are making similar decisions.
The evidence is right there in front of you if you look. Two reports, conducted by Black Book and KLAS Research, found that from one-third to half of all large hospitals are looking to trade out their old EMRs by 2016, according to HealthcareITNews. One-third to one-half, people. Considering what EMRs cost, that is an astonishing number. But that's where the industry is at.
According to KLAS data, which addresses hospitals with more than 200 beds, 44% of large hospitals surveyed are already strongly leaning toward a certain vendor, and 34% of them have already officially selected a vendor. In other words, we're seeing a massive switch out of other EMR vendors, arguably on par with the buying spree that took place during the first round of the meaningful use.
Black Book, meanwhile -- whose study includes responses from 163 large hospitals with more than 300 beds -- found that 32% of those hospitals are reevaluating their vendors' products and services, and 20% are saying the reevaluation will probably lead to a replacement system, HealthcareITNews notes.
The bottom line here seems to be that neither Intermountain nor any of its health system peers can meet the challenges they face in the near to midterm future with the EMRs they've got in place. Big health systems have big plans for their EMRs, and the ones they've got aren't cutting it.