What is Meaningful Use?

The purpose of the Healthcare IT incentive program is not static adoption of EHRs. The program has been devised in a manner that incentivizes only the “meaningful use” of your EHR system. Simply put, your practice will be eligible for the $44,000 incentive payment ONLY if it is able to actively utilize the EHR for improving the quality of care by satisfying certain federally set criteria. These criteria are called “Meaningful Use Objectives”.

Meaningful Use objectives have been defined in order to allow the progress of Healthcare IT and its impact on the National Healthcare System to be measured in terms of quality and quantity. It encourages the active adoption and implementation of health information technology by rewarding practices that are able to successfully incorporate the EMR in their daily workflow, using it to their full potential for delivering higher standards of healthcare.  

Meaningful Use is a phased program. It consists of three stages and the successful implementation of each stage is linked to incentive payments to be received for meeting the requirements of that stage.   

Stage 1: Data Capture (2011-2012)

This stage focuses on electronically capturing patient health information in a structured digital format using your EHR and utilizing this information for clinical purposes as well as communicating it for care coordination to other providers. If your first year of payment is 2011, you must satisfy the requirements of this stage in your first and second years of payment, i.e, 2011 and 2012, to receive the incentive payment.

This stage divides the objectives into two groups:

   1. Core group of 15 mandatory objectives
   2. Menu Set of 10 objectives from which physicians can choose any 5

Stage 2:  Data Aggregation and Exchange (HIE) (2013-2014)

This stage builds on the objectives of Stage 1 to focus on using health information technology to improve the quality of healthcare at the point of care. It also involves electronic and digital exchange of structured medical information among providers. This includes computerized physician order entry or CPOE and electronic transmission of diagnostic test results and other data required for clinical and medical support services.

Stage 3: Data Use to Improve Outcomes (2015)

Stage 3 focuses on utilizing the structured medical data made available in the earlier stages to improve healthcare quality and outcomes. This stage lays emphasis on the macro aspect of the healthcare system by encouraging support for national high priority conditions, emergency medical crises, self management tools for patients, access to patient medical databases and improvement in overall standards of healthcare delivery and population health.

Given below is a list of the Core and Menu Set Criteria required to be satisfied in Stage 1.

15 Core Criteria

[1] Objective: Use CPOE for medication orders directly entered by any licensed healthcare professional who can enter orders into the medical record per state, local and professional guidelines.
Measure: CPOE is used for more than 30% of all unique patients with at least one medication in their medication list seen by the Eligible Professional (EP) have at least one medication order entered using CPOE. (Exclusion: Any EP who writes fewer than 100 prescriptions during the EHR reporting period)

[2] Objective: Implement drug-drug and drug-allergy interaction checks.
Measure: The EP has enabled this functionality for the entire EHR reporting period.

[3] Objective: Maintain an up-to-date problem list of current and active diagnoses.
Measure: More than 80% of all unique patients seen by the EP have at least one entry or an indication that no problems are known for the patient recorded as structured data.

[4] Objective: Generate and transmit permissible prescriptions electronically (eRx).
Measure: More than 40% of all permissible prescriptions written by the EP are transmitted electronically using certified EHR technology.

[5] Objective: Maintain active medication list.
Measure: More than 80% of all unique patients seen by the EP have at least one entry (or an indication that the patient is not currently prescribed any medication) recorded as structured data.

[6] Objective: Maintain active medication allergy list.
Measure: More than 80% of all unique patients seen by the EP have at least one entry (or an indication that the patient has no known medication allergies) recorded as structured data.

[7] Objective:  Record the following demographics: preferred language, gender, race, ethnicity, date of birth. 
Measure: More than 50% of all unique patients seen by the EP have demographics recorded as structured data.

[8] Objective: Record and chart changes in vital signs: height, weight, blood pressure, calculate and display body mass, plot and display growth charts for children 2-20 years, including BMI.
Measure: For more than 50% of all unique patients age 2 and over seen by the EP, height, weight, blood pressure are recorded as structured data. (Exclusion: Any EP who either see no patients 2 years or older, or who believes that all three vital signs of height, weight and blood pressure have not relevance to their scope of practice.)

[9] Objective: Record smoking status for patients 13 years old or older.
Measure: More than 50% all unique patients 13 years old or older seen by the EP have “smoking status” recorded as structured data. (Exclusion: Any EP who sees no patients 13 years or older)

[10] Objective: Report ambulatory quality measures to CMS or the states.
Measure: Successfully report to CMS (or States) ambulatory clinical quality measures selected by CMS in the manner specified by CMS (or States).

[11] Objective: Implement one clinical decision support rule relevant to specialty or high clinical priority along with the ability to track compliance with that rule.
Measure: Implement one clinical decision support rule.

[12] Objective: Provide patients with an electronic copy of their health information (including diagnostic test results, problem list, medication lists, and allergies) upon request.
Measure: More than 50% of all patients who request an electronic copy of their health information are provided it within three business days. (Exclusion: Any EP that has no requests from patients or their agents for an electronic copy of the patient health information during the EHR reporting period.)

[13] Objective: Provide clinical summaries to patients for each office visit.
Measure: Clinical summaries provided to patients for more than 50% of all office visits within three business days. (Exclusion: Any EP who has no office visits during the EHR reporting period)

[14] Objective: Capability to exchange key clinical information (for example, problem list, medication list, allergies and diagnostic test results), among providers of care and patient authorized entities electronically.
Measure: Performed at least one test of certified EHR technology's capacity to electronically exchange key clinical information.

[15] Objective: Protect electronic health information created or maintained by the certified EHR technology through the implementation of appropriate technical capabilities.
Measure: Conduct or review a security risk analysis in accordance with the requirements under 45 CFR 164.308 (a)(1) and implement security updates as necessary and correct identified security deficiencies as part of its risk management process.

Menu Set Criteria
Given below is the Menu Set of 10 objectives from which physicians can choose any 5. One of the 5 must be either Objective 9 or 10.

[1] Objective: Implement drug formulary checks.
 Measure: The EP has enabled this functionality and has access to at least one internal or external formulary for the entire EHR reporting period.

[2] Objective: Incorporate clinical lab-test results into EHR as structured data. Measure:  More than 40 percent of all clinical lab tests results ordered by the EP during the EHR reporting period whose results are either in a positive/negative or numerical format are incorporated in certified E HR technology as structured data. (Exclusion: An EP who orders no lab tests whose results are either in a positive/negative or numeric format during the EHR reporting period.

[3] Objective: Generate lists of patients by specific conditions to use for quality improvement, reduction of disparities, research, or outreach.
Measure: Generate at least one report listing patients of the EP with a specific condition.

[4] Objective: Send reminders to patients per patient preference for preventive/follow-up care.
Measure: More than 20 percent of all patients 65 years or older or 5 years old or younger were sent an appropriate reminder during the EHR reporting period.  (Exclusion: An EP who has no patients 65 years old or older or 5 years old or younger with records maintained using certified EHR technology.

[5] Objective: Provide patients with timely electronic access to their health information (including lab results, problem list, medication lists, and allergies) within 4 business days of the information being available to the EP.
Measure: At least 10 percent of all unique patients seen by the EP are provided timely (available to the patient within four business days of being updated in the certified EHR technology) electronic access to their health information subject to the EP’s discretion to withhold certain information.  (Exclusion: Any EP that neither orders nor creates any of the information listed during the EHR reporting period.)

[6] Objective: Use certified E HR technology to identify patient-specific education resources and provide those resources to the patient if appropriate.
Measure: More than 10 percent of all unique patients seen by the EP are provided patient specific education resources.

[7] Objective: The EP who receives a patient from another setting of care or provider of care or believes an encounter is relevant should perform medication reconciliation.
Measure: The EP performs medication reconciliation for more than 50 percent of transitions of care in which the patient is transitioned into the care of the EP.  (Exclusion: An EP who was not the recipient of any transitions of care during the E HR reporting period.)

[8] Objective: The EP who transitions his/her patient to another setting of care or provider of care or refers his/her patient to another provider of care should provide summary care record for each transition of care or referral.
Measure:  The EP who transitions or refers his/her patient to another setting of care or provider of care provides a summary of care record for more than 50 percent of transitions of care and referrals.  (Exclusion: An EP who neither transfers a patient to another setting nor refers a patient to another provider during the EHR reporting period.)

[9] Objective: Capability to submit electronic data to immunization registries or immunization information systems and actual submission according to applicable law and practice.
Measure: Performed at least one test of certified EHR technology’s capacity to submit electronic data to immunization registries and follow up submission if the test is successful (unless none of the immunization registries to which the EP submits such information has the capacity to receive the information electronically). (Exclusion: An EP who administers no immunizations during the EHR reporting period or where no immunization registry has the capacity to receive the information electronically.)

[10] Objective: Capability to submit electronic syndromic surveillance data to public health agencies and actual submission according to applicable law and practice.
Measure: Performed at least one test of certified EHR technology’s capacity to provide electronic syndromic surveillance data to public health agencies and follow-up submission if the test is successful (unless none of the public health agencies to which an EP submits such information has the capacity to receive the information electronically). (Exclusion: An EP who does not collect any reportable syndromic information on their patients during the EHR reporting period or does not submit such information to any public health agency that has the capacity to receive the information electronically.

(Source: http://www.osteopathic.org/inside-aoa/advocacy/regulatory-issues/Documents/meaningful-use-objectives.pdf)

References:

http://missourihealthconnect.org/FAQRetrieve.aspx?ID=45267

http://www.osteopathic.org/inside-aoa/advocacy/regulatory-issues/Documents/meaningful-use-objectives.pdf

http://www.emrandehr.com/2010/08/30/meaningful-use-resource/