What’s the status of provider organizations with regard to ICD-10 implementation? A snapshot survey by Aloft Group, a Newburyport, Mass. healthcare branding and marketing firm, gives some indication.

Aloft questioned about 260 healthcare professionals, including health information management directors (52 percent), chief nursing officers (17 percent), and chief medical officers (7 percent). Community care hospitals accounted for 78 percent of respondents, followed by academic medical centers (9 percent), integrated delivery networks (8 percent), and critical access hospitals (3 percent).

• With just over a year and a half until October 1, 2014 deadline, 74.6 percent of respondents are only 25 percent or less completed in their ICD-10 conversion process.
• The biggest gap in respondents’ ICD-10 conversion plans is coding education (75.3 percent), followed by coding implementation (59.6 percent), scanning (14.6 percent), and transcription (10.6 percent).
• When it comes to making ICD-10 purchasing decisions, HIM managers and CFOs are are the top of the list.
• Respondents cited not enough time (71 percent) and limited financial resources O(53.1 percent) as top obstacles to ICD-10 conversion; followed by technology resources (42.9 percent) and human resources (33.9 percent).
• The leading gaps in the ICD-10 education process is proper training tools (47.7 percent) and financial resources (41.7 percent).
• Despite the obstacles, 55.4 percent of respondents said they have no fears that they will meet the October 1, 2014 deadline; (37.3 percent sdaid they were somewhat concerned).
• Despite the obstacles, 43 percent of respondents said they do not agree with the American Medical Association’s opposition to ICD-10 implementation and believe that the ICD-10 transition is necessary.
• Just over half (51.1 percent ) of respondents are somewhat or very confident that the October 1, 2014 deadline will hold.
• Respondents say their two biggest vendor frustrations are “not an adequate schedule in place to ensure we will be ready by the deadline (43.6 percent) and “not enough guidance” (41 percent).
• What would respondents like to see from vendors? The ability to run parallel systems to resolve issues before go-line ranked top (61 percent), followed by assistance with a formalized training plan for user training and education to improve physician acclimation (57.7 percent).
• Respondents said the two most important qualities in an ICD-10 vendor are reputation and training/support.