40% of hospital execs unhappy or ‘meh’ with their digital health systems

40% of hospital execs unhappy or ‘meh’ with their digital health systems - A surprising number of hospital CTOs, COOs and CEOs are unhappy with the electronic health record (EHR) software used by their institution. So says healthcare research firm Premiere in its 2014 Economic Outlook. Hospitals must have an EHR system in place by 2015 that satisfies a number of technical and clinical guidelines set forth in the Obama Administration’s HITECH Act. They’re rewarded what Medicare reimbursement benefits if they succeed, but will begin being penalized if they fail. “While hospitals and health systems are increasingly investing in EHRs, many are not happy about the results,” the report states. Thirty-nine percent of executives said they were dissatisfied with their EHR, while another 11 percent said they were “indifferent.” Spending on health information systems is the fastest growing major line item for hospitals. In 2013, 17 percent said they’d be making major health IT purchases in the next year. That number was up to 27 percent in this year’s survey. The U.S. EHR market is projected to grow to $9.3 billion by 2015, according to a recent analysis by Accenture. The largest hospital EHR software companies include Epic Systems, Meditech, and Cerner.