Meaningful Use

While the timing of Stage 2 of meaningful use has been a hot topic lately, there are tools and technology to help providers automate meaningful use so that practices of all sizes are ready for this huge next step. George Washington Medical Faculty Associates has found one solution to help them with the tedious tasks involved with meaningful use reporting.

The State of Hawaii Department of Human Services (DHS) has launched the Hawaii Medicaid Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive program to help healthcare providers adopt, implement, upgrade, or meaningfully use certified EHR technology.

We are regularly reminded that Stage 3 of meaningful use will shift the focus from EHR deployment and data exchange to the health outcomes improvement the technology is designed to enable. But of course some organizations are already past the implementation phase and are working on realizing those outcome improvements. That Stage 3 future is already here; it’s just not evenly distributed.

In the final part of our HIT voices series, Russ Branzell, CEO of the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) and George T.“Buddy” Hickman, executive vice president and CIO of Albany (N.Y.) Medical Center and CHIME’s board chair discuss meaningful use. Just what is at stake if the Stage 2 timeline isn’t extended?

In an Aug. 21 letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Susan Turney, M.D., president and CEO of the Medical Group Management Association, called on Sebelius to embrace a series of actions designed to ease the burden on physicians trying to meet to meet the meaningful use requirements in the HITECH Act, including instituting a moratorium on penalties for physicians that have successfully completed Stage 1 requirements.