According to a new poll conducted by New York City-based audit, tax and advisory services firm KPMG, many provider-level administrators have doubts about the level of funding their organizations have planned to support EHRs, even while almost half of them say they are more than half way to completing full deployment. Approximately 49 percent of hospital and health system business leaders who participated in a KPMG poll last month said they were more than 50 percent of the way to completing EHR deployment.
However, the survey found that 48 percent of health system business leaders said they are only somewhat comfortable with the level of budgeting their organization has planned for EHR deployment. Nine percent said they weren't comfortable at all while 18 percent said they were unsure. Only 25 percent said they were very comfortable.
"There is a level of uneasiness as to whether there is adequate funding to complete these projects," Gary Anthony, principal with KPMG Healthcare, said in a statement. "In most organizations, EHR deployment will most likely be one of the most transformational projects that they've ever undertaken, as well as one of the largest investments outside of the construction of a new hospital they've ever made. Yet, many organizations view EHR as just an IT project and that may be why we are seeing multiple extensions to scope, timeline and budget."
In terms of resource strategies used to complete EHR deployment, 46 percent of hospital and health system leaders indicated that they are using a multiple resource strategy. This was followed by leveraging existing staff (16 percent); hiring new or additional staff (13 percent) and securing third party assistance (10 percent). Fifteen percent said they didn't know.
When asked if their organization had a mobility access strategy that provides clinicians and patients with 'anywhere' access to EHRs/data, about half the leaders said they didn't know.
The results to this poll reflect responses from more than 220 hospital and health system administrators who self selected to participate in a recent webcast poll.
