Onward with Stage 3
Once again, Meaningful Use (MU) is the big news this week. This time, the news is that the federal Health IT Policy Committee voted to approve the MU Work Group’s Stage 3 recommendations.
The recommendations, scaled back from 26 to 18, focused on four areas of emphasis: clinical decision support, patient engagement, care coordination and population management.
“We need to be careful to weigh the impact on providers,” said Paul Tang, MD, co-chair of the Work Group, when introducing the updated Stage 3 recommendations. “We can’t burden them unnecessarily. We need to be flexible as we can be.” He also said the Work Group made a point of avoiding requirements where the standards are not mature and tighten its focus. “We carefully selected those with the most bang for the buck.”
National Coordinator for Health IT Karen DeSalvo, MD, MPH, MSc, stressed that MU is only one tool the ONC has to advance the health IT agenda. "This is the next chapter of this program, but not the last chapter," she said.
She also pointed out that approving the recommendations would allow the Standards Committee and others to begin the process of testing the realistic technical opportunities and feasibility of the proposed measures.
More than $20 billion already has been spent, said David Lansky, PhD, president and CEO of Pacific Business Group on Health. “The goal has always been to get to outcomes. There are lots of individual trees and bushes we’ve been whacking at” but the aggregate doesn’t meet the goals.”
While he said he appreciates the comments about moving faster, Marc Probst, CIO of Intermountain Healthcare, added that providers are working incredibly hard and still are not going to meet the requirements of Stage 2. “I love this list for Stage 3, it’s exactly what we need to be doing but the industry is hurting to get done what we’ve already put on the table.”
“What good is Stage 3 if nobody gets there?” said Gayle B. Harrell, a Florida state representative appointed to the HIT Policy Committee by the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.
More to come, I’m sure.
Beth Walsh
Clinical Innovation + Technology editor
Editor
Editor Beth earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and master’s in health communication. She has worked in hospital, academic and publishing settings over the past 20 years. Beth joined TriMed in 2005, as editor of CMIO and Clinical Innovation + Technology. When not covering all things related to health IT, she spends time with her husband and three children.