The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT have now released regulation regarding meaningful use of EHR’s. This new regulation involves the first two years (2011-2012) of a multiyear incentive program. According to David Blumenthal, National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, “the goal of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act was not adoption alone, but meaningful use of electronic health records – that is, their use by providers to achieve significant improvements in care.” The legislation ties provider payments to the achievement of advances in health care processes and outcomes.
There was not a lot of movement on the implementation of EHR’s until last year when Congress and the Obama administration passed the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act. This act authorized incentive payments to clinicians and hospitals for Medicare and Medicaid claims when they used EHR’s privately and securely to improve health care delivery.
One of the most important aspects of meaningful use regulation is how hospitals and providers must utilize EHRs in order to be considered meaningful users in 2011-2012. The final regulation consists of two sets of objectives. First is a set of core objectives, which are a starting point for meaningful use implementation, and the second is a menu of 10 additional important activities which providers will choose 5 to implement over the 2 years. For a complete listing of the objective and menu sets, please refer to The “Meaningful Use” Regulation for Electronic Health Records.
