Just a quick update from the world of health information technology - today the Federal CMS (The Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services) released the "final rule" defining Meaningful Use of Electronic Health Records. We here at eHana thought this was an important and interesting development so we put together a quick email overview. We hope you'll find it helpful.

 

First, some background: Agencies must demonstrate Meaningful Use of an EHR product in order to qualify for special Medicare/Medicaid EHR incentive payments in 2011-2015. Unfortunately behavioral health, developmental disability, and human service provider agencies are not generally eligible for the incentive reimbursement outside of certain specialty healthcare programs. Incentives may be extended in the future (there is a bill currently making its way through the House for behavioral health) so it's certainly a worthwhile exercise to review the new eligibility requirements.

 

As part of the Meaningful Use push, new EHR certification regulations have also been released. The primary national vendor of EHR certification services, CCHIT, has indicated it will pursue status with DHS as a Meaningful Use certifying authority. EHRs certified under CCHIT-2011 and earlier will not be "grandfathered" into Meaningful Use compliance and will need to be re-certified.

 

The Meaningful Use rules themselves have been relaxed pretty dramatically from earlier drafts. Agencies are required to meet all 15 criteria from a "Core Set" of requirements, including demographics collection, basic interoperability, and CPOE (e-scripting and e-med orders). Agencies are also required to meet 5 of the more challenging "Menu Set" criteria. That's "Phase I", covering 2011 and 2012. In "Phase II", it's expected that the "Menu Set" criteria will be merged into an updated "Core Set" of 20 requirements and new requirements will be added.

 

I've attached screenshots of the requirement sets below. The entire final rule can be found online here: http://www.cms.gov/ehrincentiveprograms/ -- it's over 800 pages long and includes many lengthy discussions and responses to public comments. David Blumenthal, National Coordinator for Health IT, provides a good summary in this New England Journal of Medicine article.

 

So what does it all mean, and why should you care? As promised, these rules aren't just about using EHR for the sake of using EHR. They set measurable benchmarks for "meaningfully" using these tools, a high, yet attainable bar that will move the US towards more integrated, universal EHR adoption. CMS is clearly motivated to ensure that all Medicaid/Medicare providers are heading in this direction, whether or not they’re eligible for specific incentives.

 

At eHana, we're evaluating the new criteria and will keep you updated about our compliance strategy going forward. You can also subscribe to our mailing list and twitter feed to be kept up to date on the absolute latest health IT industry changes.