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In the first year of the federal electronic health record incentive program, the biggest barriers to achieving meaningful use were problems with computerized provider order entry elements of EHRs, a new study finds.

The study, “Overcoming challenges to achieving meaningful use: Insights from hospitals that successfully received Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services payments in 2011,” was published online Sept. 22 by the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. The researchers looked at 2,475 hospitals, 313 of which received meaningful-use incentive payments in 2011.

Hospitals that had problems meeting the CPOE requirements were 18 percent less likely to receive incentive payments than hospitals reporting problems with other criteria, according to the report abstract. CPOE issues constituted the biggest single challenge among hospitals that failed to achieve EHR meaningful use in their first year.

“As the EHR incentive program matures, policymakers and other stakeholders should consider strategies that maintain the critical elements of (meaningful use) while adequately supporting hospitals that … are impeded by specific technological, cultural and organizational adoption and use challenges,” the researchers concluded.

JAMIA’s online-first articles have been peer-reviewed and accepted for publication, but not yet assigned a publication date.