Achieving Meaningful Use
The U.S Government Invests $40B to Promote “Meaningful Use” of Electronic Health Records
as a key enabler of National Healthcare Reform Goals
Landmark 2000 and 2001 Institute of Medicine studies and National Priorities and Goals established in 2008 by the National Quality Forum provide the underpinnings of the 2009 Patient Protection and Accountable Care Act (PPACA) better known as the “US Healthcare Reform Bill”. This historic law promotes a more efficient, patient-centric, outcomes-driven, accountable US health care system.
The four stated pillars of US Health Care Reform are:
- Widespread use of Health Information Technology
- Evidence-backed (“comparative effectiveness”) clinical research
- Payment system reforms and
- a Medicare commission that implements and fine-tunes such components
The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) portion of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), also called “The Stimulus Bill” , offers strong initial financial incentives for wide spread adoption – and later penalties for non-adoption – of electric health records (EHRs) by eligible hospitals and physicians. This legislation clearly conveys the U.S. government’s commitment to EHRs and its readiness to invest extensive federal resources, approximately $40B, to proliferate their “meaningful use.”
To qualify for Stimulus fund payments for Stage 1 EHR Meaningful Use, hospitals must:
- Use a “Certified” EHR
- Achieve 14 Core Set and 5 Menu Option criteria and report measures
- Report clinical quality and other measures as selected by the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary