Providers On Track For ICD-10 According to Annual Leadership Survey

Nearly all survey respondents expect to complete their conversion to ICD-10 by October 2014

HIMSS recently published the results of the 25th Annual 2014 HIMSS Leadership Survey, which highlights the journey of health IT over the past 25 years. The Survey examines a wide array of topics crucial to healthcare leaders including IT priorities, issues driving and challenging technology adoption and IT security.

One of the most notable findings from this year’s Survey concerns the perceived impact financial resources are having on IT implementations. While a majority of the survey participants (65 percent) reported IT budget increases – which is likely a contributing factor to the transition to a paperless environment—a lack of adequate financial resources now tops the list of barriers to successful IT implementation. This is a shift from the past two years when the primary IT challenge was insufficient and untrained staffing resources.

As with previous years, this year’s Survey continues to explore the progression of healthcare organizations from paper-based systems to a near paperless environment where medical data is fluidly and securely shared between providers. This year’s respondents suggest that government efforts to encourage providers to adopt health IT initiatives across the country – such as Meaningful Use (MU) – have been successful. For example:

• Over 90 percent of survey respondents have already qualified for Stage 1 Meaningful Use;
• Approximately three-quarters expect to qualify for Stage 2 in 2014; and
• Nearly all respondents expect to complete their conversion to ICD-10 by October 2014.

 “It is refreshing to see how much progress providers have made in the past 25 years when it comes to integrating health IT into their patient care strategies,” said Lorren Pettit, Vice President of Market Research for HIMSS Analytics. “It is clear that healthcare reform initiatives are paying off and we hope that these findings will validate the ROI of health IT so that we may continue down this path of a more cost-effective, efficient healthcare system that engages the patient.”

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