Sixty-eight percent of eligible hospitals have purchased software from a vendor that has been certified to meet the criteria for Stage 2 of meaningful use, according to a recent report from HIMSS Analytics, the analytics arm of the Chicago-based Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS).
Furthermore, three-quarters of the 418 hopsitals surveyed said they anticipated their organization would qualify for incentives available through Stage 2. Sixty percent of the hospitals surveyed have met at least nine of the 16 core measures required for Stage 2 of meaningful use. Most hospitals say they can record demographics (83 percent) and vital signs (79 percent).Only six percent of hospitals said they could provide a portal where their hospital could view, download, and transmit their medical information.
However, despite the low number of some of the measures, authors of the report say there is substantial activity planned for the future. Of the menu metrics, more than 60 percent of hospitals surveyed said they could meet three of the six measures, which is what is required to earn the incentive money. Those menu metrics were advanced directive (68 percent of all hospitals could do this), lab results to ambulatory providers (66.9 percent), and imaging results (66.5 percent).
“These results suggest that the industry is moving forward towards Stage 2 Meaningful Use and hospitals will be ready to begin attesting in 2014. If granted by CMS, the HIMSS-recommended six month extension to the Year 1 timeline will give those hospitals that have not yet had the opportunity to work through all of the required technological components the additional time they need to attest to Stage 2,” the authors wrote.
