While things are still in draft form, we all are following the EHR meaningful use dialogue with great interest. The stimulus bill appropriates $19 billion in Medicare and Medicaid carrots for physicians, hospitals, and others who utilize EHRs in a meaningful way.
Physicians with approved EHRs up and in use before 2012 will be eligible for the maximum Medicare incentive payments. (This is a reward for all those who have invested themselves) Physicians who have not adopted an EHR before 2015, and are not able to obtain a hardship exemption will see a 1% cut to Medicare pay, that reduction will gradually increase up to 3% by 2017.
The first draft by the Health IT Policy Committee is summarized below and note integration and information exchange is a key foundation:
By 2011:
- Use computerized physician order entry for all order types, including medications.
- Incorporate laboratory tests into EHRs and share results electronically with public health agencies.
- Generate lists of patients by specific condition to use for quality improvement.
- Provide clinical summaries for patients after each encounter.
- Exchange key clinical information among health professionals (problems, medications, allergies, test results, etc.).
By 2013:
- Generate and transmit prescriptions electronically.
- Manage chronic conditions using patient lists and decision support tools.
- Use bar coding for medication administration.
- Offer secure patient-physician messaging capability.
- Record patient preferences in EHR.
By 2015:
- Achieve minimal levels of performance on quality, safety and efficiency measures.
- Give patients access to self-management tools.
- Access comprehensive patient data from all available sources.
- Conduct automated real-time surveillance on occurrences such as adverse events, disease outbreaks and bioterrorism.
- Incorporate clinical dashboards into EHR.
Source:
- Health IT Policy Committee healthit.hhs.gov/portal/server.pt/gateway/PTARGS
_0_10741_872719_0_0_18/meaningful%20use%20matrix.pdf - American Medical News First Draft of EHR Definition Unvieled
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Welcome to the Healthcare IT Project Management Blog of Elyse Nielsen. This is the place where I share the ideas I have learned, the things I’d like to remember, and my thoughts for a brighter future. Find out more.
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