eWeek.com reports in its Health Care news section in an article entitled "Survey: Hospital CIOs Want Electronic Medical Records" that a survey of more than 200 health care executives, mostly CIOs at hospitals in the U.S., reports almost one-quarter of the organizations represented in the survey have a fully operational electronic medical records system and that forty percent of the hospitals have signed a contract for an EMR system or actually initiated installation. Only about ten percent have no plans at all to implement electronic records.
While a majority either already have or are on the way to having electronic medical records, it seems they aren't really interested in sharing the information in those records. About three-quarters say that they don't have any plans to participate in an RHIO (regional health information organization). Only about 14 percent actually participate in a RHIO; and only about 20 percent reported that they have an RHIO in their area.
What's on the hospital IT wish list? Single-sign-on identity management (almost four-fifths report expecting to have it in place in a few years, only about one-fifth already have it), and expanding the functionality of their web sites (three-quarters want to be able to offer patients the ability to schedule appointments online). About two-thirds are interested in offering a physician portal.
78 percent of those surveyed are "satisfied" or "very satisfied" with the performance of their vendors -- the suppliers, application vendors, and consulting firms that help make their technology work -- and almost four-fifths outsource some part of their IT.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1927818,00.asp