Since January, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have implemented incentive programs to drive meaningful use of Electronic Medical Records (EMR) technology – software and support tools that represent a roughly a $40B marketplace.
In August, CMS reported that $6.9B in total EMR incentives were paid to 143,800 physicians and hospitals – a number that will likely increase markedly in the coming quarters. This is because hospitals and eligible professionals know that to receive the highest possible financial incentive they must deploy and demonstrate meaningful use of an EMR before 2014.
Curiously, these incentives don’t seem to be enticing as only 20% of Medicare and Medicaid eligible providers are taking strides toward EMR implementation and only 55% of eligible hospitals have received an EMR incentive payment. We think they’re delaying investments for a few reasons.
· Implementation costs are high, and the financial return of EMR systems isn’t fully proven
· Poorly preforming EMR vendors are causing senior hospital executives to consider their options
· Clinical leadership unwilling to change the clinical processes required to derive value from an EMR system
· Creating and maintaining clinical content for a successful EMR system is very complex
