Hannah Galvin, MD has a great article on Healthcare IT News talking about ICD-10’s five stages of grief. You can go read the article to see how she describes it, but the five stages of grief are:
- Denial
- Anger
- Bargaining
- Depression
- Acceptance
Pretty fascinating way to describe people’s response to ICD-10. I think we have people and organizations that are still at all 5 stages of grief associated with adopting ICD-10. Although, I think most people have bridged #3.
There are still many people that are in denial and that are angry about ICD-10. Although, that population is getting smaller and smaller. I don’t see many people still bargaining. We went through that stage for years, but I believe it’s over. The largest group of people are stuck in stage 4. I know very few people who aren’t depressed over ICD-10. The HIM profession is more excited about ICD-10 than anyone else, but otherwise it’s a general depression around the change. It’s hard to implement something where you’re not sure what value you’ll receive from it. I think that’s many people’s perspective.
Dr. Galvin’s final comment in the article linked above is also interesting: “Whether you’re ready or not, the transition is less than three months away – and in the end, I believe it will be worth all the grief.” Now we’re less than 2 months away. I’m still not sure it’s worth the switch or not, but it doesn’t really matter. It’s happening either way. I guess I’ve reached stage 5.