The recently published PriceWaterhouseCoopers Health Research Institute report, Ready or Not: On the Road to the meaningful use of EHRs and health IT, has circulated through the blogmasters desk, and in our continuing effort to keep you informed, we’ve produced the following abstract…

After surveying 120 CIO’s and another handful of healthcare executives, the PwC report adds heft to the impact of the ARRA’s Meaningful Use (MU).

The report makes many keen assertions including:

• “Health systems will need to transform the way they deliver care, so they can sustain performance and grow revenue in the future.”
• Successfully achieving meaningful use “hinges on closer integration with key constituents” (physicians, health insurers, patients).
• Health systems that already have connected with physicians, patients, and health insurers around MU are “more likely to be applying for government incentives” than those that haven’t. But only half of respondents expected to apply for incentives in 2011. (By 2014, 90% expect to be applying).
• Health systems that have included patients in the planning are “more confident about meeting MU standards.”
• “Implementing MU can enhance hospital-physician alignment.”
• Most health systems are failing to connect with health insurers around MU.
• 80% of CIO’s are more than concerned about meeting MU requirements by deadlines. (An American Hospital Association survey reports that 55% of hospitals expect to incur penalties.)
• “The benefits of achieving MU outweigh the challenges.” Those benefits include improve healthcare quality, disease management, coordination of care, improved alignment with physicians, increased productivity, market advantage, and improved alignment with payers.

But PwC identified four barriers to attaining MU: Lack of MU standards clarity, shortage of skilled IT staff, vendor readiness, limited capacity of existing infrastructure . . .

and proffered five benchmarks to achieve compliance: Establish governance, balance compliance against competing priorities, forge new public-private ventures, make the patient the purpose, collaborate with physicians and health insurers.