JACR: 7 steps to meaningful use

Despite a host of uncertainties surrounding meaningful use, a pair of experts recommended that radiologists develop and implement a meaningful use (MU) certification plan and offered practical strategies to reach that goal, in a commentary published in the April issue of Journal of American College of Radiology.  

Although they characterized MU as a partially funded federal mandate, Ramin Khorasani, MD, MPH, and Andrew Menard, JD, both from the Center for Evidence-Based Imaging and the department of radiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, advised radiologists to take steps to meet MU requirements. Considering the larger perspective, they wrote, “HIT provides crucial tools to improve the quality and efficiency of healthcare services.”

Khorasani and Menard outlined specific strategies to meet Stage 1 requirements. These included:

1. Use the generous timeline to your advantage. To qualify for the maximum incentives of $44,000, radiologists can postpone the initial 90-day reporting period from Oct. 1, 2012 to Dec. 31, 2012. Waiting until Oct. 1, 2103 drops the total five-year incentive to $39,000.
2. Create a leadership team comprised of radiologists and nonphysicians to develop the MU plan and coordinate with MU planning teams at affiliated institutions.
3. Learn about MU Stage 1 requirements. These core and menu set measures emphasize capturing data and using it to track clinical conditions.
4. Complete a gap analysis to determine gaps in systems and processes that must be filled to qualify for Stage 1. Khorasani and Menard cautioned that some functionality will not reside in RIS/PACS and the voice recognition system, requiring radiologists to collaborate with the hospital or enterprise MU team to assess the roles of other systems.
5. Verify the certification status of all systems relevant to MU certification and ensure that the vendors have certified, or plan to certify, the systems in accordance with the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.
6. Develop a practice-specific strategy that details which core and menu set measures and systems underlay the qualification process.
7. Prepare for attestation. Each eligible provider must attest to meaningful use and requires supporting data to complete the reporting process.

Khorasani and Menard emphasized the collective pain of MU, writing, “[We] will have a lot of company as we struggle to meet the MU requirements.” However, they predicted that software will develop rapidly and best practices will be promulgated in a reasonable timeframe.

The authors also suggested that radiologists provide input into the development of Stage 2 and Stage 3 MU requirements related to radiology.

To read the American College of Radiology’s “Summary of Meaningful Use Rules,” click here.