In Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society’s test to score hospitals’ adoption and use of IT tools, only about 2% of US hospitals have achieved a top rating.
Pushed by competition and complex regulatory changes, healthcare organizations are racing to embrace data analytics. But where to start?
A key resource is the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS). HIMSS is known for its quarterly guide, Essentials of the US Hospital IT Market, compiled from its own survey of nearly every hospital in the United States.
One of the core technologies tracked in the Essentials survey is the electronic medical record (EMR). “In 2013, 7% of the 5400 [healthcare institutions in the survey] were still at Stage Zero,” Lorren Pettit, VP, market research, at HIMSS Analytics told InformationWeek in a phone call.
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Stage Zero means these institutions haven’t implemented EMR in their three ancillary departments: laboratory, radiology, and pharmacy. According to HIMSS Analytics, this means that there may be some departmental systems, but they are not integrated throughout the organization. As a result, patient records are essentially completely paper-based.
Pettit added that around 2% of the organizations have met the top — Stage 7 — criteria.
Each hospital’s EMRAM score is computed once per year. There is no fee associated either with receiving a score or being validated as a Stage 6 or Stage 7 hospital. Hospitals are not required to be HIMSS members.
The latest HIMSS-created EMR Adoption Model (EMRAM) scores are here; a list of Stage 7 hospitals in the US is here. Stage 7 hospitals are leaders in terms of quality metrics too, although Pettit said he is still looking into this correlation.
Are hospitals that commit fully to Stage 7 EMR destined for quality, or do quality leaders embrace EMR fully? “It’s a chicken-and-egg question,” Pettit said.
Pettit’s most recent look at the data also considered the pace at which some 4500 hospitals moved up the EMRAM between 2008 and 2013. “Three-quarters had moved at least one stage over the last five years, but one-quarter remained static,” he said. “Why is there that divide?”
Another question Pettit wants to answer: How does the pace of moving up the EMRAM relate to productivity?
Date: December 5, 2013