The Society Attends HHS Meaningful Use Workgroup
On December 3, 2010, the Meaningful Use WorkGroup at the Department of Health and Human Services met at a public forum where they continued a discussion on recommendations to the Health Information Technology (HIT) Policy Committee. Their discussion focused on on how to define meaningful use in the short- and long-term, the ways in which electronic health records (EHRs) can support meaningful use, and how providers can demonstrate meaningful use. The Society attended the public hearing to follow the evolving recommendations of the Meaningful Use Workgroup. View workgroup agenda (PDF, 103K)
| CMS regulations announced on July 13, 2010 defined the “meaningful use” objectivesthat providers must meet and the technical capabilities required for certified EHR technology to qualify for bonus and incentive payments under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act of 2009. |
The meeting was chaired by Paul Tang, MD, of the Palo Alto Medical Center, and co-chaired by George Hripcsak, MD, of Columbia University. The working group was composed of voices from hospitals, private practices, non-profits and the private sector. Various discussions revolved around developing standards of information which all electronic health records should have that would be useful to providers, patients and hospitals alike. View initial workgroup guidelines (PDF, 35K)
The original list of needed information, such as medical allegories, past illnesses, immunization history, was augmented with the desire for information on shared care plans and reminders of upcoming actions or follow ups with the appropriate health care provider. Discussions also focused on what information a person would need from seeing their primary care physician, versus the information a patient would receive following their discharge from a hospital.
The workgroup also discussed what threshold of use of electronic health records for providers and patients could determine ‘meaningful use,’ noting that a large education campaign would be needed to both inform providers and patients about the financial and health outcome benefits of using health information technology to better document and coordinate care.
The workgroup discussed the extend to which markets would push consumers, both patients and providers, to pick the best media platforms for future health care records, and decided to modify some current benchmarks for further public comment in order to see whether stakeholders felt more comfortable with market-driven standards for electronic health records or whether a national standard should be in place in order to best organize this plethora of information amid a myriad of institutional and individual stakeholders. This discussion led the workgroup to decide upon new standards for eligible professionals and hospitals to abide by when offering relevant health information to their patients in the upcoming years.
The Society will continue to attend future Workgroup forums in order to gather the most up to date definition and standards for meaningful use criteria that will be reviewed by the HIT Policy Committee, and how these changing definitions and standards may affect our membership.
