People are the top barrier to EHR adoption, Halamka says

Why don't more clinicians use EHRs? Is it because of cost? Usability? Resistance to change? Concerns about privacy and security?

It's all of the above, and more, says Dr. John Halamka, CIO of Boston-based CareGroup Health System and Harvard Medical School. But not necessarily in the order you might have guessed.

According to the clinicians, CIOs, CMOs and hospital administrators who took a Harvard School of Public Health seminar on health IT leadership last week, people far and away represented the No. 1 barrier to adoption. "It's hard to get sponsorship from senior leaders, find clinician champions and hire the trained workers to get the EHR rollout done," Halamka explains on his Life As A Healthcare CIO blog. Cost came in a distant second, followed by product selection and suitability. Issues such as privacy and usability were much further down the class' top 10.

Halamka, who sits on more national health IT committees than we care to list, also posted a Lettermanesque Top 10 from one particular student. "When you ask vendors how they justify the claim that their products are 2011 certified [and the certification process has not yet been announced], they show you a Ouija Board," is among the explanations.

To read the full list:
- check out Halamka's blog post

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