44% of CIOs say Business Associates Not Ready for "Meaningful Use":Pricewaterhouse Coopers Study Shows

Posted August 16, 2010 08:43 AM by Jack Anderson CEO Compliance Helper    

Bruce Henderson, national leader of the EHR/HIE Practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers, says that initial and ongoing collaboration is essential on the road toward meaningful use of electronic health records. “Each phase of the timeline for achieving meaningful use standards calls for a higher level of collaboration.”

In the survey, 44% of CIOs say they are concerned that the external vendors they rely on in health information exchanges are not prepared for meaningful use implementation. Other barriers to implementation, Henderson says, include the delay in making final regulations publicly available, a lack of clarity surrounding some of the regulations, and an overall shortage of skilled IT staff in the labor market.

Preparing For Meaningful Use

"Preparing for HITECH compliance takes considerable planning. “As a first step, CIOs should institute an open dialogue between vendors, payers, physicians, patients, and others and assess where their systems and processes stand,” Henderson says.

Compliance Helper feels that one essential piece of information is the level of HIPAA HITECH compliance of all business associates and sub-contractors.  A risk assessment which is also required for "Meaningful use" will give you a snapshot but for ongoing transparency metrics must be in place to continuously monitor compliance.  The Compliance Meter^tm supplies this critical information.

The Compliance Cooperative or CO-OP helps even the smallest sub-contractor get compliant, stay compliant, and prove compliance with the Compliance Meter^tm.  All of this for only a $125 set up fee and $35 per month for maintenance.