Continuing to Define "Meaningful Use" of HIT

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) creates two key concepts to determine whether eligible professionals qualify for the HIT incentive payments.  As discussed previously, they must make "meaningful use" of HIT and use a qualified or certified electronic health record   The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is developing the proposed rule on meaningful use to be published in December. The rule will have a 60 day comment period; with the final rule will be published by May 2010.  The agency will examine input received from both of the HIT federal advisory committees and the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics (NCVHS) to establish a basic obtainable level of meaningful use for 2011. It is anticipated 2011 criteria would include evidence that clinicians have purchased and are using electronic health records. For 2013, the focus would be on process measures, and  in 2015, the focus would be on health care outcomes.   The HIT Policy Committee is planning to hear testimony at its October meeting on the mapping of core meaningful use objectives and existing measures to medical specialties, small practices and small hospitals. It is also anticipated that the October meeting of the NCVHS Workgroup on Quality will include a discussion on measures for meaningful use.   With regard to certification, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONCHIT) will be developing two rules for publication in December. One rule will be an interim final rule published on certification standards and criteria. The other will be a proposed rule defining the certification process. It is anticipated that both rules will have either a 30 or 60 day comment period and the final rules will be published in spring 2010.