A study from the Ann Arbor, Mich.-based College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) shows that CIOs are concerned about their ability to implement the standards recommended by the HIT Standards Committee in time to meet currently established deadlines.
Of the 176 respondents, most said their organizations are in the early stages of implementing applications based on standards under consideration by ONCHIT and CMS. Nearly two-thirds said they were at least somewhat worried about their ability to implement standards-based applications and how that would affect meaningful use determinations for their organizations, while only 8.3 percent said they were not worried about achieving deadlines, says CHIME.
Respondents expressed serious concern that vendors won’t be ready to offer standards-based products that will enable providers to meet the deadline (21.6 percent listing vendor readiness as their top concern). According to CHIME, the need to deploy upgraded or new systems in order to comply was mentioned as the top concern by 14.8 percent of all respondents. Also mentioned as the top impediments were insufficient capital (15.3 percent), lacking staff with needed skill sets (10.2 percent) and insufficient staff (8.5 percent).
To view the complete report, click here (the executive summary can be found here).
