NVISIA - Update on Meaningful Use - First Draft Definition Released

As discussed in a previous blog, the HIT Policy Committee did release the “first draft” of their recommended definition of “meaningful use” of EHR’s on June 16 as reported in this HIMSS article.

Upon review, the “first draft” of the definition of “meaningful use” is quite detailed. The definition first breaks out five categories of “Health Outcomes Policy Priorities,” these being:

1) Improve quality, safety, efficiency, and reduce health disparities
2) Engage patients and families
3) Improve care coordination
4) Improve population and public health
5) Ensure adequate privacy and security protections for personal health information

Each of these five Health Outcomes Policy Priorities is then further broken down into “Care Goals.” For example, the “Improve quality, safety, efficiency, and reduce health disparities” priority has five care goals, including:

1) Provide access to comprehensive patient health data for patient’s health care team
2) Use evidence-based order sets and CPOE
3) Apply clinical decision support at the point of care
4) Generate lists of patients who need care and use them to reach out to patients (e.g., reminders, care instructions, etc)
5) Report to patient registries for quality improvement, public reporting, etc

The broad “Care Goals” are then further defined with Objectives and Measures across three time lines - 20011, 2013 and 2015. The 2011 Objectives & Measures are more well defined and a longer list than the 2013 and 2015 Objectives & Measures. An example of a 2011 Objective under the “Improve quality, safety, efficiency, and reduce health disparities” is “Use CPOE for all orders types including medications.” One of the corresponding 2011 Measures is “Report % of orders entered directly by physicians through CPOE.”

As one would expect, the “Improve quality, safety, efficiency, and reduce health disparities” priority has the largest number of goals, objectives and measures. Across all priorities, there are a total of 10 Goals, 22 2011 Objectives and 27 2011 Measures. As stated earlier, the 2013 and 2015 Objectives and Measures are less defined but raise the bar significantly in the intent of their Objectives and Measures. The three target year goals have been summarized as follows:

- 2011: Goal is to electronically capture in coded format and to report health information and to use that information to track key clinical conditions

- 2013: Goal is to guide and support care processes and care coordination

- 2015: Goal is to achieve and improve performance and support care processes and on key health system outcomes

Ever since the Stimulus announced incentives to drive the adoption of EHR’s in February, there has been an outcry of what does “meaningful use” mean and an overall lack of enthusiasm to move forward quickly with spending to adopt EHR’s due to the ambiguity. The first draft of the definition by the HIT Policy Committee gives a very descriptive roadmap of what physicians and hospitals can expect to have to do to demonstrate “meaningful use.” The draft of the definition can be found here. Public comment on the draft definition is accepted up to June 26. Instructions for public comments can be found here.

The “meaningful use” first draft did not define “certified technology” - another ambiguous term in the HITECH Act. We will watch for and report on any further definition on “certified technology” in future blogs.

One Comment

Dave

Posted June 22, 2009 at 10:36 am | Permalink

Well, the ONC policy committee sent the HIT policy committee back to the drawing board for revisions on the definition of meaningful use. Look for a new revised set of recommendations on July 16. See the updated information at:

http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/onc-goes-back-drawing-board-meaningful-use

Want further confusions - read this statement:

“The ONC policy committee recommendations on meaningful use will not be binding, Blumenthal said. The Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services will be the final word on meaningful use and how it applies to incentives for physicians and hospitals using healthcare IT under the Medicare and Medicaid program.”