Six months to the day after the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released the “preliminary rules” for Meaningful Use, the final rules are in. For clinicians and policymakers who want to see Electronic Health Records (EHRs) play a key role in driving improvements in the healthcare system, there’s a lot to like here.
For the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC), the agency that oversees the federal health information technology incentive program, the Meaningful Use rules are a balancing act. On one hand, ONC wants to get as many clinicians and hospitals on board with simply adopting EHRs (and thus, the need to set a low bar). On the other hand, they want to ensure that once people start using EHRs, they are using them in a “meaningful” way to drive improvements in care (and thus, the need to set a high bar). I think ONC got that balance just about right.
Let me begin with a little background. In 2009, Congress passed the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, setting aside about $30 billion for incentives for ambulatory care providers and acute-care hospitals to adopt and “meaningfully use” EHRs. Congress specified that the executive branch would define Meaningful Use (MU) and would do so in three stages. The first stage was finalized in 2010 and its goals were simple – start getting doctors and hospitals on board with the use of EHRs. By most metrics, stage 1 was quite successful. The proportion of doctors and hospitals using EHRs jumped in 2011, and all signs suggested continued progress in 2012. Through July 2012, approximately 117,000 eligible professionals and 3,600 hospitals have received some sort of incentive payment.
