HIMSS released figures from its annual survey on health IT during a briefing in Orlando, where more than 38,000 attendees have come together for the HIMSS 2014 conference.

The survey, in its 25th year, evaluated 298 respondents representing 600 different hospitals in the U.S. Many of the concerns carried over from last year.

Twenty-five percent of respondents indicated that financial viability was their top concern.
Respondents were also worried about the impact of changing payment models and new policy mandates — like meeting meaningful use stage 2 and ICD-10.

Meanwhile, federal initiatives continue to drive HIT adoption. Ninety percent of respondents said they have already qualified for meaningful use stage 1, three-quarters expect to be ready for stage 2, and 92 percent expect to complete ICD-10 conversion on time. Deadlines for both ICD-10 and meaningful use stage 2 fall on Oct. 1.

Significant barriers organizations face when trying to implement HIT include lack of financial support and lack of staffing resources.

"Almost 20 percent said lack of financial support for HIT is a top barrier to implementing solutions they would like to have," said Jennifer Horowitz, senior director of research at HIMSS Analytics.

She said this has always been a top barrier.

The majority of respondents indicated they needed clinical application support to fulfill 2014 staffing needs, followed by network/architecture support, clinical informatics and IT security.

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