by
Barbara Kram, Editor | February 27, 2007
Hospitals have shown progress in health IT adoption but barriers still remain. Survey respondents identified both the initial and ongoing costs of deploying and maintaining IT systems as the greatest barrier to IT use. Other barriers included the lack of trained staff to implement technology and the lack of interoperability among systems.
In the past, hospitals have been hamstrung by federal anti-kickback and physician self-referral laws, which prevented them from providing their physicians with many of the tools necessary to maintain electronic health records and share clinical data with other members of a patient's care team. But recent HHS rules have lessened those obstacles and provided a clearer roadmap for helping physicians access and use health IT.
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However, hospitals have been concerned that, under IRS rules, helping physicians with health IT could impact hospitals' tax exempt status. The AHA recently met with the IRS to ask the agency to confirm that following the new HHS rules would not jeopardize hospitals' tax exempt status. The IRS's initial response was positive. The IRS understands hospitals' role in facilitating electronic health record implementation and is willing to move quickly to provide a formal response about this important issue.
The survey was administered in fall 2006. Almost 1,500 community hospitals-about 30 percent of all community hospitals-responded to the survey. A copy of the survey results is available at
http://www.aha.org/aha/content/2007/pdf/070227-continuedprogress.pdf.
About AHA
The American Hospital Association (AHA) is a not-for-profit association of health care provider organizations and individuals that are committed to the health improvement of their communities. The AHA is the national advocate for its members, which includes more than 5,000 hospitals, health care systems, networks, and other providers of care, and 37,000 individuals. Founded in 1898, the AHA provides education for health care leaders and is a source of information on health care issues and trends. For more information, visit the AHA Web site at
www.aha.org.
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