Many ambulatory EMR users not ready for MU

More 80 percent of the nearly 600 ambulatory providers interviewed by KLAS who have purchased an electronic medical record (EMR) are confident they will qualify for Meaningful Use in 2011. However, additional research finds that many of those users still have significant gaps to fill in to meet the MU requirements, according the research firms latest report.

For instance, more than two-thirds of the surveyed providers--who are using 25 different EMR systems--were not sharing EMRs with patients, and nearly half had not implemented clinical decision support rules. These are two key MU requirements, reports the company, which monitored vendor performance in eight key MU areas: progress notes, drug-drug and drug-allergy alerts, computer-provider order entry, data mining tools, ePrescribing, clinical decision support rules, patient electronic access to medical records, and viewing active medication, allergy, and problem lists.

Providers with EMR systems from Epic Systems and Greenway Medical Technologies appeared to be the best prepared to qualify for federal incentive payments so far, according to KLAS. Greenway's software took top honors among medical practices with six to 25 physicians, while the Epic program was a leader among groups with more than 100 physicians, reports Medscape.

Providers using Praxis, SRSsoft, simplifyMD, and LSS appear the least prepared to qualify for MU during 2011, according to the report.

For more details:
- check out the Medscape article
- read this CMIO article
- here's the KLAS release

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