Healthcare Execs Want Better Efforts to Measure Clinical IT Systems, Study Finds

According to a new research report from the Weymouth, Mass.-based healthcare management consulting firm Beacon Partners, most healthcare executives are dissatisfied with how the data they are receiving from clinical IT systems is being used to measure the value brought to their organization.

The report looked at the insights of more than 300 healthcare leaders regarding clinical system performance measures and return on investment (ROI), and found only 36 percent are satisfied in this area. The majority said they would like to see a better effort.

In total, 41 percent of the respondents said their organization has performance measures related directly to ROI or achievement of goals for their EMRs. Of those respondents, most said the quality management (40 percent) and information technology (31 percent) departments are most responsible for collecting, analyzing and reporting the data. Most of this data, thus, is used for quality management purposes, respondents said.

Most organizations said they were at least at Stage 3 of development in the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society) HIMSS EMR Adoption model. The majority of respondents said they were at Stage 6. Most respondents were CIOs at community hospitals, which had less than $50 million in revenue.