A Measurement of Readiness for Tennessee Hospitals to Implement “Meaningful Use” Criteria Resulting from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, 2009

<p>In 2009, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was signed into law. This legislation provided for monetary rewards for those acute-care hospitals that meet "meaningful use" computerization and reporting criteria.</p><p>The study used a descriptive, nonexperimental design to answer three research questions (1) What is the level of readiness to meet "meaningful use" criteria in the Tennessee Hospital Association (THA) member hospitals; (2) What is the level of readiness to meet "meaningful use" criteria in the rural THA member hospitals; and (3) Is there a difference in the readiness to meet "meaningful use" criteria between rural and urban THA member hospitals?.</p><p>A survey was sent to 115 THA member hospital, with a return rate of 83% (N=95). The inclusion criteria focused on acute-care hospitals, with rehabilitation, psychiatric and long-term care hospitals falling into the exclusion criteria.</p><p>The Readiness Score was determined for the total survey respondents (N=95), as well as for the rural (N=41) hospitals and urban (N=54) hospitals in the Tennessee Hospital Association member hospitals meeting the inclusion criteria. Z-scores of the readiness score were examined and indicated that there was one outlier with z>3.0. Therefore, that case was removed from the comparison in the t-test (N=94). The t-test comparison of rural and urban hospital found a significant difference at (p=.002), two tailed.</p><p>To ensure that the slightly nonnormal distribution of the readiness scores did not explain the difference found with the t-test, an additional nonparametric test was also conducted. The Mann Whitney U-test showed that even with the assumption of a normal distribution is not made, the difference in readiness between urban and rural hospitals is still statistically significant at p=0.026.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

PhD (Doctor of Philosophy)

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation - unrestricted

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Nursing

Year dc:date.issued

2012

Author dc:creator

• Wilhoit, Kathryn Wallin

• rule
• rural
• meaningful use
• ARRA
• HITECH
• CPOE
• meaningful use criteria
• non-rural
• urban
• Health Services Research
• Medicine and Health Sciences
• Public Health

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright by the authors.

Repository record dc:identifier

https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/1449

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dc.etsu.edu:etd-2642