Though it’s been four years since the idea of “meaningful use” (MU) first surfaced as a performance improvement measure, and three since it became a requirement for all medical professionals, many but not all healthcare organizations have adopted its tenets in their electronic health record (EHR) development.
According to a story by Amy L. Derlink, RHIA, privacy officer at IOD Inc., the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) reported “meaningful use was the no. 1 priority of hospital information technology departments for 2011, and is likely to continue as a top concern.”
Since certification as achieving meaningful use of health information technology provides financial incentives, there’s been a rush to get there. But many healthcare organizations have found that it’s not quite as easy as they had hoped. “The criteria required for demonstrating MU can be challenging to achieve, including requirements around release of information to patients,” Derlink wrote in Becker’s Hospital Review.
Physicians using EHRs “won't likely rise much above the current 20% to 25% rate," wrote David Kibbe, senior adviser to the American Academy of Family Physician; and Brian Klepper, healthcare analyst, editor of Care and Cost and chief development officer of the onsite clinic firm WeCare TLC.
Physicians, of course, are not legally required to adopt EHRs. But the financial penalties they face are significant – reductions in Medicare fees starting in 2015 if they have not installed an EHR system and have not had it certified as MU.
Achieving meaningful use revolves around “implementation specifications and certification criteria for the first stage of MU objectives,” Derlink reported. “Eligible hospitals (EHs) need to show meaningful use of their EHR, and, as necessary, use combinations of certified EHR modules or complete EHR systems to meet the meaningful use requirements.”
To get MU certification, EHR modules have to “capture demographic and clinical health information that provides support for clinical decisions and physician order entry; capture and query information relevant to healthcare quality, allow the exchange of health information and integrate it into and with other sources,” and “meet national standards for interoperability between other EHRs as well as governmental agencies, such as the Centers for Disease Control and immunization registries,” according to Derlink.
Since MU requirements primarily focus on patients'
access to electronic health information, EHs and eligible professionals failing to meet this objective will not be able to demonstrate MU, and therefore not be eligible for certification or financial incentives.
Edited by
Braden Becker
