By 2013, 89 percent of critical access hospitals had installed full or partial electronic health record systems. Despite high adoption, CAHs were less likely than any other types of hospitals to have met meaningful use criteria in 2013 due to significant challenges fully adopting and using EHR software, according to a study in Health Affairs.
To identify the top challenges faced by CAHs, researchers used a HIMSS survey of CAHs conducted between November 2012 and April 2013.
- EHR implementation costs: 50 percent
- Availability of grants and/or loans to offset EHR costs: 35 percent
- Workflow changes: 30 percent
- Lack of qualified IT personnel: 27 percent
- Broadband implementation costs: 23 percent
- Clinical staff cooperation: 23 percent
- Security or privacy challenges: 20 percent
- Inadequate EHR training for employees: 16 percent
- Lack of technical support from EHR vendor: 16 percent
- Poor vendor selection or EHR usability: 15 percent
- Broadband unavailable of insufficient: 11 percent
- Lack of leadership/executive cooperation: 8 percent
The study also showed CAHs that were nonprofit, part of a larger system or those that partnered with other small hospitals in group purchasing agreements were the most able to overcome these challenges and had more advanced IT systems in place.
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