HITPC: Larger hospitals, physician practices most likely to attest to MU Stage 2

Eligible hospitals (EHs) that have attested to Meaningful Use (MU) Stage 2 are primarily medium to large-sized; whereas eligible professionals (EPs) tend to be larger physician groups in urban settings.

These data were shared by Jennifer King, research and evaluation branch chief for the Office of the National Coordinator of Health IT, during the Health IT Policy Committee meeting on July 8.

EPs scored the highest on meeting computerized physician order entry (CPOE) objectives for medication, laboratory and radiology orders, as well as recording demographics, vital signs and smoking status. They also performed well on medication reconciliation, according to data ending on May 30, 2014.

EHs did not perform as well on CPOE, and performed better on providing patients with the ability to view, download and transmit data and with recording demographics, vital signs and smoking status, according to the same data.

So far, 2,823 EPs have attested for the 2014 reporting year. Of these, 443 are new participants and 972 have attested to MU Stage 2. Also, 128 EHs have attested for the 2014 reporting year, including 70 new participants and 10 hospitals attesting to Stage 2.

In all, 1 percent of all EPs and 3 percent of EHs have attested for MU Stage 2.

“I think it’s dangerous to provide interpretations to these numbers,” said Elisabeth Myers, policy and outreach lead at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

She explained that there has been only one reporting period for EPs and two reporting periods for EHs so far this year, and that more attestations are expected to roll in now that the second reporting period ended on July 1. “The numbers don’t show an increase in the number of people who have done the reporting period, just the people who have attested. It isn’t really representative.”

Also, she cautioned against comparing the attestation numbers in 2014 to previous years, “as we haven’t had a year quite like this.” From 2011 to 2013, providers attested following 90-day reporting periods while in 2014, “we had a massive upgrade required, and moved to quarters to accommodate that. If you offset things by a quarter, you have a more complicated piece of data to record.”

“Taking individual numbers to compare to past years doesn’t give us a lot of useful information,” Myers said.

Also, King added that during the past years, the most attestations occurred in the third and fourth quarters. “We expect that to continue in 2014—even to a greater degree.”