Stage 2 MU Attestations Sluggish
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
Only four hospitals and 50 physicians have achieved Stage 2 MU according to CMS.
The number of eligible hospitals and professionals who have attested to Stage 2 meaningful use remains abysmally low.
HealthData Management reports that, at a meeting of the Health IT Policy Committee, a CMS official revealed that only four hospitals and 50 physicians have achieved Stage 2 MU electronic health records to date.
The reporting year started four months ago for professionals and seven months ago for hospitals. One HIT Policy Committee member, Paul Egerman, asked whether Stage 2 has been successful. Elisabeth Myers, policy and outreach lead for the CMS Office of e-Health Standards and Services, replied, "That is an excellent question. I don't think that we have enough data, again, to answer that question yet.”
When pressed to make a judgment, Myers replied, "I would say that we have a very slim amount of data right now. We are encouraged by having people who have attested to Stage 2, given the anecdotal evidence that has said that no one will be ready." Myers added there are functionalities that are required for Stage 2 that are not fully implemented across all facilities yet.
According to Jennifer King, acting director of ONC's office of economic analysis, evaluation, and modeling, "Many of the Stage 2 meaningful use functionalities had very high adoption rates" in the range of 80 percent to 90 percent or higher, according to results of the 2013 American Hospital Association annual Health IT survey that was just released by ONC.
Some Stage 2 objectives had lower adoption rates, however, most notably the "view, download, and transmit" objective. Only 10 percent of hospitals at the time of the AHA survey indicated they had all three capabilities, King explained. Overall, she said that many hospitals had adopted most of the Stage 2 core functionalities, but few had adopted all of them.
ONC funded the survey to track hospital adoption and use of EHRs and the exchange of clinical data. All U.S. hospitals were invited to participate in the survey, which was conducted from November 2013 to the end of February 2014. The response rate for non-federal acute care hospitals was 59 percent.