If federal healthcare policymakers are wondering how successfully they’re engaging healthcare CIOs in their efforts to ramp up the transition to new HIT, they may want to consider the results of a recent “snap” survey.
Conducted by healthsystemCIO.com, the April poll of more than 65 CIOs across the country paints a pretty bleak picture of how CIOs are viewing programs stemming from the HITECH act.
For example, 75% of respondents doubt that the feds will have “all critical elements” of the HITECH incentive program – “including a functioning EMR certification program, finalized definitions of Meaningful Use (at least Stage 1) and a method of reporting to CMS”—ready in time for “vendors and other critical market participants to aid providers”.
Moreover, “while 75 percent doubted the program would be ready to pay out stimulus dollars, over 60 percent said receiving those monies at the first opportunity was critical to the health of their organizations.”
The poll isn’t long, and 65 respondents may be far from a representative sample given the size of the country’s healthcare system. But for policymakers, there’s no reason to doubt that these CIOs are as plugged into what’s going on in their industry as the rest of their peers, so the results should hardly be taken lightly.
In view of the recent focus on HIT by policymakers and stakeholders alike, the poll’s most disturbing finding may be that nearly 80 percent of respondents think that ONC is not doing enough “to bring real-world perspectives to the table” when it comes to understanding the “challenges of HIT implementation.”
HHS recently unveiled a two-year PR campaign to educate the public about its efforts to encourage the transition to new HIT. If the results of this poll are truly representative, officials may want to start by talking to those stakeholders with whom they should have been working all along.
Jeff Rowe blogs daily at Priming the Pump.
