Ninety percent of EHR purchasers not on track to meet 'meaningful use'

About 90% of healthcare providers who have purchased electronic health records (EHR) systems are not on track to meet their “meaningful use” implementation goals, according to the 2011 Black Book Rankings user survey.

“The customers of only a handful of high-performance EHR vendors expressed high confidence in meeting the demonstration of meaningful use deadlines,” says Kevin Parker, MD, lead EHR researcher for Black Book Rankings. “The perception of an effective technology partner is highly dependent on the quality of EHR vendor support through a several-month implementation.”

Among those not accomplishing their meaningful use goals:

• 93% said they lacked substantive support from their EHR vendors;

• 89% said they delayed implementation because of the cost of additional support from EHR vendor/consultants;

• 82% reported that a hurried selection of an EHR vendor has resulted in negative consequences;

• 77% said they lack available and/or trained staff to properly implement an HER system; and

• 69% said they are unprepared and underfunded to rectify difficult system interfaces.