It's Transformation Time
Meaningful use of certified electronic health record (EHR) technology.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) authorizes the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to provide reimbursement incentives for eligible professionals and hospitals who are successful in becoming “meaningful users” of certified electronic health record (EHR) technology. The Medicare EHR incentive program will provide incentive payments to eligible professionals (EPs), eligible hospitals, and critical access hospitals (CAHs) that are meaningful users of certified EHR technology. The Medicaid EHR incentive program will provide incentive payments to eligible professionals and hospitals for efforts to adopt, implement, or upgrade certified EHR technology or for meaningful use in the first year of their participation in the program and for demonstrating meaningful use during each of five subsequent years.
Eligible Professionals
Iv'e had many years of experience trying to play a small role in improving healthcare results (better, faster, cheaper - BFC).
It started after grad school. Congress passed PL 92-603 to improve the quality and reduce unnecessary costs of Medicare and Medicaid hospital inpatients. I helped start and then became Executive Director of the Delaware Review Organization, a Professional Standards Review Organization (PSRO - now know as QIOs - in Massachusetts that organization is MassPro.)
I incorporated a non-profit organization, the Delaware Healthcare Data Institute, whose purpose was to align the users of healthcare data in Delaware, with the ultimate goal being...improve quality and impact unnecessary costs. I moved to Massachusetts before it was launched.
Then I moved to the land of HMOs, when once again Congress played a critical role and initiated the growth of HMOs in order to...improve quality and impact unnecessary costs.
And now, Congress has passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. It holds the potential to do more to help improve quality and impact costs than any initiative in my career.
Resources:
Measuring Health IT Adoption
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) supports two national health IT adoption surveys: one of physician offices and one of hospitals.
The surveys:
- Assess the current state of health IT adoption;
- Specify measurable goals and methods for evaluating strategies; and,
- Determine approaches that can accelerate health IT adoption in a cost-effective manner
Adoption rates
Setting | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009* |
Physicians offices (basic**) | 11% | 13% | 17% | 21% |
Physicians offices (full**) | 3% | 4% | 4% | 6% |
Hospitals (basic**) | N/A | N/A | 8% | N/A |
Hospitals (full**) | N/A | N/A | 2% | N/A |
*2009 statistics are preliminary.
