The time is now
This week at HIMSS10 in Atlanta, during a roundtable with two dozen CMIOs and in a keynote speechaddressed to an audience of thousands, National Coordinator for Health IT David Blumenthal, MD, repeated this message: His office wants to hear from you about the proposed regulations governing the meaningful use of EHRs.
And if you want to change something that’s beyond CMS’ capacity to change—say, the time table for getting inventive funds—Blumenthal encourages you to tell your congressional delegation what you think. Now is definitely the time because the feedback torrent flowing to CMS will probably become flood before the March 15 comment cutoff.
If you’re not sure what to say, take a look at what the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) have come up with. CHIME has filed comments, including its “critical concerns” with the CMS’ EHR Incentive Program.
Tops on the CHIME list: The current regulations outline an “all-or-nothing” approach to defining and achieving meaningful use that is too ambitious, does not take into account the need for flexibility by providers and does not reward incremental progress.
The organization also wants CMS to give providers until 2017 to adequately achieve all components for EHR implementation, develop an expanded suite of 34 core objectives (some of which can scale over time) and use an incremental approach that would deem a provider a meaningful user if it can achieve 25 percent of objectives by 2011, 50 percent by 2013, 75 percent by 2015 and substantially all by 2017.
The ONC has addressed one item on CHIME’s list—a clarification of certification guidelines for EHR systems. “The vast majority of EHR systems are not one product but instead incorporate different systems from multiple vendors,” CHIME stated.
ONC also released a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) to establish two certification programs for testing and certifying health IT, one temporary and one permanent. The temporary certification program would assure the availability of certified EHR technology prior to the date on which healthcare providers seeking incentive payments would begin to report demonstrable meaningful use of certified EHR technology. The national coordinator would authorize organizations to test and certify complete EHRs and/or EHR modules.
The permanent certification would be more stringent and would replace the temporary program with one that would separate the responsibilities for performing testing and certification, introduce accreditation requirements and establish requirements for certification bodies authorized by the national coordinator related to the surveillance of certified EHR technology, among other things.
The temporary program would end once the permanent certification program is established and at least one certification body has been authorized by the national coordinator.
Although the proposed rule describes two certification programs, ONC said it anticipates issuing separate final rules for each program.
Is this an adequate answer to the certification question? Let me know what you think.
Mary Stevens, Editor
mstevens@trimedmedia.com
And if you want to change something that’s beyond CMS’ capacity to change—say, the time table for getting inventive funds—Blumenthal encourages you to tell your congressional delegation what you think. Now is definitely the time because the feedback torrent flowing to CMS will probably become flood before the March 15 comment cutoff.
If you’re not sure what to say, take a look at what the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) have come up with. CHIME has filed comments, including its “critical concerns” with the CMS’ EHR Incentive Program.
Tops on the CHIME list: The current regulations outline an “all-or-nothing” approach to defining and achieving meaningful use that is too ambitious, does not take into account the need for flexibility by providers and does not reward incremental progress.
The organization also wants CMS to give providers until 2017 to adequately achieve all components for EHR implementation, develop an expanded suite of 34 core objectives (some of which can scale over time) and use an incremental approach that would deem a provider a meaningful user if it can achieve 25 percent of objectives by 2011, 50 percent by 2013, 75 percent by 2015 and substantially all by 2017.
The ONC has addressed one item on CHIME’s list—a clarification of certification guidelines for EHR systems. “The vast majority of EHR systems are not one product but instead incorporate different systems from multiple vendors,” CHIME stated.
ONC also released a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) to establish two certification programs for testing and certifying health IT, one temporary and one permanent. The temporary certification program would assure the availability of certified EHR technology prior to the date on which healthcare providers seeking incentive payments would begin to report demonstrable meaningful use of certified EHR technology. The national coordinator would authorize organizations to test and certify complete EHRs and/or EHR modules.
The permanent certification would be more stringent and would replace the temporary program with one that would separate the responsibilities for performing testing and certification, introduce accreditation requirements and establish requirements for certification bodies authorized by the national coordinator related to the surveillance of certified EHR technology, among other things.
The temporary program would end once the permanent certification program is established and at least one certification body has been authorized by the national coordinator.
Although the proposed rule describes two certification programs, ONC said it anticipates issuing separate final rules for each program.
Is this an adequate answer to the certification question? Let me know what you think.
Mary Stevens, Editor
mstevens@trimedmedia.com