Waiting until 2012 on attestation for Meaningful Use doesn’t mean you shouldn’t buy an EHR in 2011

In my previous posting I wrote “You will be better off waiting until FY 2012 on Meaningful Use.” I received a bunch of questions via e-mail about that so I thought I would clarify my recommendations.

I agree, based on Protima Advani’s evidence cited at iHealthBeat, that waiting until 2012 for attestation (registration, etc.) for Meaningful Use makes more sense for almost everyone since there’s no reduction in the incentives, there’s more time to implement your processes and procedures, and lower risk of how fast you must move to stage 2.

However, I still think it’s a good idea to start the process of making your EHR purchases and begin deployments this year. Just because you buy a system this year (which you should probably do) you do not need to register or attest for MU incentives this year. Wait for attestation until 2012 but do get started on your EHR journey this year. If you’ve been using your EHR for months you are more likely to be “meaningful users” by the time you attest anyway.