Top 10 Health IT Trends 2015

By Ken Congdon

Our annual reader survey may have identified the top 10 health IT trends for the coming year, but three initiatives clearly rank above the rest when it comes to provider mindshare.

2014 has been a tumultuous year for health IT. After Meaningful Use (MU) got off to a smooth start with Stage 1, it hit a brick wall with Stage 2 this year. As of the end of August, only 25 hospitals and 1,277 eligible professionals had attested to Stage 2 on the Medicare side of the program. Providers are clearly having a difficult time meeting the requirements outlined by Stage 2, and many feel their cries for help are being ignored by the federal government. The MU program has received numerous modifications to date, but CMS hasn’t budged on the one area providers seem to care about most (i.e., changing the Stage 2 attestation period from one year to 90 days).