I remain stupified with how Meaningful Use continues to play itself out among hospitals.

What has me all a-twitter today is that there are no productivity thresholds tied to qualifying for incentive payments.  Many hospitals, even after two years of running EHR, report productivity losses of twenty percent or more.

Yet these hospitals can qualify for meeting Meaningful Use.  That sounds too much like ‘we do not know where we are going, but we are making really good time’.

Is there a pony hidden in there somewhere?  Where else can you spend a few hundred million dollars implementing a system, have your productivity fall off the charts, and be awarded a seal of approval and cash for how well the implementation went?

How far must one’s productivity drop before someone speaks up and says what the emperor does not want to hear?  Namely, you were probably better off before you implemented EHR.