Many hospitals sit tight on EHR donations

Sixty-two percent of hospital chief information officers say their institutions do not plan to donate EHRs to private-practice physicians, according to a recent survey by the College of Healthcare Information Management (ePharm5, May 1). Although new exceptions to the Stark self-referral law and the anti-kickback law permit them to do this, the CIOs say that the rulings could be variously interpreted and might be reversed.

Hospitals that do plan to take advantage of the relaxed rules will provide EHR software, implementation support, training, and help-desk support, the CIOs said.