ONC: Data Shows that Meaningful Use is Working

Annual survey data from the American Hospital Association shows how dramatically the use of particular functions of an electronic health record system have increased under the meaningful use program, according to the Office of the National Coordinator.


Annual survey data from the American Hospital Association shows how dramatically the use of particular functions of an electronic health record system have increased under the meaningful use program, according to the Office of the National Coordinator.

Charts on an ONC Web site, highlighted by the office during HIMSS13 in New Orleans, show the improvement. For instance, use of active medication lists in non-federal acute-care hospitals rose from 62 percent in 2008 to 87 percent in 2012.

Other usage advancements since 2008 include clinical decision support (66 percent to 87 percent), drug interaction checks (59 percent to 85 percent), clinical summaries (60 percent to 81 percent), advanced directives (45 percent to 80 percent), maintained problem lists (44 percent to 78 percent) and CPOE for medication orders (27 percent to 72 percent).

Out of 24 meaningful use objectives examined, 16 had at least an 80 percent adoption rate in 2012, according to the AHA data. The increased adoption of Stage 1 meaningful use core measures between 2011 and 2012 ranged from 12 percent to 62 percent. “These findings indicate that acute care hospitals have made considerable progress since the passage of the HITECH Act toward the goal of improving health and health care through the use of advanced information technologies,” according to ONC.

The charts are available here.