HIMSS briefing: Notes from the MU trenches
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| The HIMSS Show Daily keeps two attendees busy as they catch up on conference news at HIMSS12, which took place Feb. 20-24 at the Venetian Sands Expo Center in Las Vegas. Source: HIMSS |
“If a hospital is demonstrating meaningful use in 2014, for the purposes of avoiding payment adjustment, clinical quality measure data must be submitted by July 1, 2014,” said Wise. “That’s a key date [for eligible hospitals] to take in consideration.”
The briefing, titled “Stage 2 Meaningful Use, Implementation Standards and Certification Criteria: An Overview of the Proposed Rules,” sought to give an in-depth review of the notice of proposed rulemakings (NPRM) for attendees to gain an understanding of their implications to organizations.
“There have been many gains made in healthcare in its goal to meet meaningful use Stage 1 compliance,” said the Chicago-based HIMSS. Research from HIMSS Analytics reported a 16 percent increase, from 25 to 41 percent in the seven months from February 2011 to September 2011, in hospitals being well positioned to meet Stage 1 of MU.
As of Sept. 30, 2011, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) reported 2,215 eligible hospitals have registered for Medicare and Medicaid EHR incentive programs; 564 hospitals (158/Medicare and 406/Medicaid) have received payment for meeting Stage 1 of MU, as of this same date.
One of the proposed changes was that Stage 2 MU was delayed one year to 2014 if MU Stage 1 is demonstrated in 2011. Other changes in Stage 1 objectives included the use of computerized physician order entry medication orders (an alternative denominator measure of the number of orders becomes optional in 2013 and required in 2014) and the capability to exchange key clinical information (removed from the core set in 2013).
“Certified EHR technology quality measure calculation must align with the measures an eligible hospital plans to submit,” advised Wise. “A hospital cannot submit clinical quality measures that its EHR technology has not been certified to calculate.”
One of the notable proposals in Stage 2 MU requirements is that not only do meaningful users need to have the ability to perform tasks but also must be doing so successfully to a degree, according to Wise. For example, the eligible hospital measures “capability to submit to immunization registries” will measure the successful ongoing submission of data from EHR technology for the entire reporting period; same as the measure “capability to surveillance data to public health agencies.”
Michael H. Zaroukian, MD, PhD, vice president and CMIO at Michigan State University in Lansing, Mich., in a separate discussion during the virtual briefing, noted that some proposed Stage 2 objectives that required demonstrated use might be challenging. Proposed Stage 2 measures focus on the increased electronic capturing of health information in a structured format and the increased exchange of clinically relevant information between providers at transitions of care is key to note, he said.
According to Zaroukian, one of the proposed Stage 2 MU changes is CMS will begin to eligible providers’ email addressed for better communication. “It’ll be interesting to see how they do that but it’s certainly worth trying,” he said.
One particular measure that has garnered some controversy is the measure that 10 percent of unique patients seen by their eligible provider during the EHR reporting period view, download or transmit to a third party their health information. He stated it could be hard for eligible providers to guarantee patients themselves will engage in this activity and transmission to a third party could have privacy and security implications.
Wise concluded her presentation with a call for comments from HIMSS members. With comments and questions on the proposed regulations, that will better inform HIMSS’ comments on the NPRMs in search of clarifications and changes.
For more information, check out HIMSS’ Meaningful Use OneSource.