HST | Technology & Healthcare

New Meaningful Use Dashboard supported patient care and administrative decision-making to help Dr. Douglas Forman demonstrate Meaningful Use in the first 90 days of 2011

Douglas Foreman, D.O., a family physician in Warwick, R.I., will be among the first physicians in the U.S. to attest to meeting Phase 1 requirements for Medicare Meaningful Use of health information technology as defined by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). April 18th was the first day physicians can attest to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in order to receive Medicare incentive payments provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

To achieve this, Dr. Foreman used the Ingenix CareTracker electronic health record (EHR) system, which features a graphical Meaningful Use Dashboard created by Ingenix to help physicians monitor progress toward meeting Meaningful Use objectives and take corrective action to improve quality of care as they work to qualify for federal health IT incentives.

“The Ingenix CareTracker EHR system supports my ability to provide better patient care and has made it much easier for me to demonstrate Meaningful Use,” said Foreman. “The Meaningful Use Dashboard shows me exactly where I’m meeting or exceeding requirements and in which areas I need to focus more attention. Using Ingenix CareTracker technology gives me more confidence in managing my practice knowing that we do the best job possible for our patients and have the tools to continually improve the quality of our care. Ingenix has provided us with experts in Meaningful Use who have provided feedback, support and education to make this possible.”

Click to read the full news release on the Ingenix Website.

Visit our site for more information on our Medical Billing Services and Ingenix CareTracker PM and Ingenix CareTracker EHR solutions.

Geoff Lusty
Vice President - HST

A simple view of the very complex Meaningful Use Criteria

The subject of “Meaningful Use of Certified EHR” is a topic of concern and confusion for most of us. In short, in order for professionals and hospitals to be eligible to receive payments under the Medicare and Medicaid incentive programs provided through the Recovery Act, they must be able to demonstrate meaningful use of a certified EHR system.

Reading through the more than 550+ pages of the actual documentation on this subject is nearly impossible and certainly impractical. We wanted to provide you with a simple list of the Core requirements you’ll need to meet to qualify for your stimulus money.

In short, you will need to meet 15 Core requirements and an additional 5 Menu requirements to qualify to receive these stimulus payments for EHR adoption/use. The following is a list of these requirements:

The 15 core criteria, presented in an abbreviated format, are:

1. Use computerized physician order entry (CPOE);
2. Implement drug-drug and drug-allergy interaction checks;
3. Generate and transmit permissible prescriptions electronically;
4. Record demographics;
5. Maintain an up-to-date problem list of current and active diagnoses;
6. Maintain active medication list;
7. Maintain active medication allergy list;
8. Record, chart changes in vital signs;
9. Record smoking status for patients age 13 or older;
10. Implement one clinical decision support rule;
11. Report ambulatory clinical quality measures;
12. Provide patients with an electronic copy of their health information, upon request;
13. Provide clinical summaries for patients for each office visit;
14. Demonstrate capability to exchange key clinical information;
15. Protect electronic health information.

Five additional criteria, of the provider’s choosing, must be selected from a menu of 10 that include entering test results into an EHR as structured data, maintaining lists of patients with specific conditions, and submitting information to immunization registries electronically.

This information was taken from several sources (below). Click on the links below for further details on Meaningful Use Requirements including additional requirements for Clinical Quality Measures, Medicare vs. Medicaid overview and a full list of the Menu Requirements mentioned above.

Read the Modern Medicine article
Download (.pdf) the The NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL of MEDICINE article

Please feel free to contact us with any questions related to Meaningful Use and how HST can help get you to your stimulus incentives.

Visit our site for more information on our Medical Billing Services and Ingenix CareTracker PM and CareTracker EMR solutions.

Geoff Lusty
Vice President - HST