AHIMA issues meaningful use white papers for industry discussion

The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) has made available a series of short white papers analyzing the recently released notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) on meaningful use from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC).

Beginning with the Jan. 20 “Overview of Meaningful Use NPRM” white paper, the eight-week program is designed to help AHIMA members understand the proposed requirements, generate individual comments to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and provide some thought on how the meaningful use program might affect members and their healthcare provider organizations, according to the Chicago-based organization.

According to AHIMA, the papers follow AHIMA’s action plan to address the NPRM and the accompanying interim final rule (IFR) from ONC on the certification standards necessary to facilitate an organization’s role as a meaningful user.

Comments on both rules are due no later than March 15. The association said that for the latter weeks of the series the papers will cover AHIMA’s comments on the proposed regulations. AHIMA has provided the following tentative schedule for the papers:
  • Week 1–Overview of the NPRM and Meaningful Use–Provider Requirements;
  • Week 2–Continuation of the Overview of Meaningful Use–Incentive Payments and Program Requirements;
  • Week 3–Meaningful Use and Certification;
  • Week 4–Measure reporting: Health IT Functional Measure for Eligible Providers/Hospitals;
  • Week 5–Measurement Reporting: Clinical Quality Measures for Eligible Providers/Hospitals;
  • Week 6–Process for Demonstrating Meaningful Use; and
  • Weeks 7-8–AHIMA Comments on Meaningful Use.

The series is available on the AHIMA American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Web site and the Journal of AHIMA Web site, where readers can discuss the issues, opportunities and challenges with each other.

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