Hospitals Having Trouble Using EHRs To Report Quality Measures, AHA Study Shows

Hospitals—even those with loads of experience using health information technology—are still having a tough time using electronic health-record systems to gather and report clinical quality measures, according to a new report summarizing a study by the American Hospital Association. Since the inception of the electronic health-record incentive-payment program under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, reporting of clinical quality measures has been part of participating providers' so-called meaningful-use objectives.

Beginning in 2014, however, all hospitals, physicians and other so-called eligible professionals in the program will be required to submit clinical quality measures electronically. The report findings call into question hospital readiness for that transition. The four hospitals participating in the study were not named in the report, but each had “significant experience with EHRs” before passage of the ARRA and “each uses a different EHR vendor,” the three-page report summary (PDF) said...