Stage 2 ‘Meaningful Use’ Requirements Released
The Obama administration has announced the criteria for Stage 2 of its electronic health records (EHR) incentive program, with extended deadlines.
The three-stage “meaningful use” program is part of an overall effort by the Obama administration to computerize medical records. Stage 1 focused on setting up the basics of an EHR system. In Stage 2, providers must give patients secure online access to their records, and create a system to track medications from order to administration, CMS says.
The third stage, set to begin in 2015, will expand the meaningful use objectives to improve patient care.
“In the Stage 1 meaningful use regulations, CMS established an original timeline that would have required providers who first demonstrated meaningful use in 2011 to meet the Stage 2 criteria in 2013,” CMS says.
Now, however, CMS has given hospitals and physician offices another year to demonstrate that they are meaningful users of EHR technology. They do not have to meet the Stage 2 requirements released on Aug. 23 until 2014.
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) also published a final rule on Aug. 23 that outlines the certification criteria for EHR technology. This helps ensure healthcare providers choose a system that meets meaningful use requirements, ONC says.
More than 3,300 hospitals and 120,000 doctors have already qualified to participate in the program, and have received “an incentive payment since it began in January 2011,” CMS says. “That exceeds a 100,000 goal set earlier this year.”
Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, says EHR technology and the program can lead to better patient outcomes.
“The changes we’re announcing today will lead to more coordination of patient care, reduced medical errors, elimination of duplicate screenings and tests and greater patient engagement in their own care,” she says in the release.
For more information, click here.
Posted: August 24, 2012