Hospitals that want to make an educated guess on how the federal government will define “meaningful use” of electronic health records under the economic stimulus package can use an existing benchmark, one expert says. They can refer to the qualifications for earning Stage 4 on the seven-level rating system of hospital EHR functionality from HIMSS Analytics, a Chicago-based research firm.
Jerri Hiniker, program manager at Stratis Health, a Bloomington, Minn.-based quality improvement organization, predicts the federal government likely will set standards for meaningful use of EHRs that align with HIMSS Analytics’ Stage 4. That stage calls for the use of both clinical decision support and computerized physician order entry, among other functionality.
Regardless of what standards are adopted, meeting requirements for meaningful use to gain financial incentives from Medicare or Medicaid will involve “showing you are using EHRs to provide quality care,” Hiniker said in an April 24 Web seminar sponsored by Health Data Management.
The office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology is expected to submit to Congress by May 15 a strategic plan for carrying out the stimulus, said another speaker, Dan Rode, vice president of policy and government relations for the American Health Information Management Association, Chicago. Rode predicts the plan will reveal details about rules for carrying out the $2 billion in grants and loans for health information technology that the stimulus provides. But David Blumenthal M.D., the new national coordinator, has his work cut out for him; he just took office on April 20.
For more information on the HIMSS Analytics standards, visit himssanalytics.org.
--Howard Anderson
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