Hospitals struggling with CPOE

As they prepare to meet federal requirements for "meaningful use" of EMRs, hospitals seem to be struggling most with getting CPOE right and with helping physicians embrace EMR technology, according to consulting firm Computer Sciences Corp. For "eligible professionals"--physicians, dentists, podiatrists, optometrists, chiropractors and, for Medicaid purposes, nurse midwives and some physician assistants--the top challenge is capturing data for clinical decision support and outcomes reporting. That's followed by establishing proper workflows to simplify data entry.

In two new papers, CSC, which has been busy churning out reports on health IT and meaningful use, identifies the top 10 challenges in achieving meaningful use for both hospitals and eligible health professionals. CPOE also makes the list for eligible professionals, while data capture is among the top 10 for hospitals.

On the issue of workflow, CSC consultant Michael Mytych tells physicians and other healthcare professionals to pay attention to significant changes on the horizon. "We're asking them to add things to their daily life that don't exist today," he says in one report.

Of note, the No. 10 challenge for hospitals is the fact that transition to ICD-10 coding will not wait for EMR adoption. "Project leaders in hospitals should resist the temptation to consider this a revenue cycle project; it must be closely coordinated with work
on the inpatient EHR [especially problem list and clinical documentation]," CSC advises. "Although ICD-10 coding is not required in Stage 1 [of meaningful use], in order to avoid a two-step it makes sense to consider moving immediately to ICD-10 or SNOMED mapped to ICD-10."

For further details:
- read this Health Data Management story
- download the CSC paper for hospitals
- see the companion report for eligible professionals

Related Articles:
CSC: 90 percent of hospital execs say meaningful use is top or second priority
CSC tells providers to press their vendors on EMR certification readiness

Post a comment