Overview of Meaningful Use and Net Health Employee Health and Occupational Medicine
Note: Not applying for Federal Incentives? This still concerns you! Read the second section, Why Should I Care about Certification.
Summary
The US Government is offering financial incentives for hospitals and "eligible providers" (i.e., physicians and other practitioners who bill Medicare or Medicaid) to adopt "meaningful use of a certified electronic health record." "Meaningful use" requires that eligible providers meet specific criteria for the use of EHRs, in order to qualify for the incentive payments. For Stage 1, that is, the year 2011, CMS has specified 25 criteria that providers need to practice, plus measurement statistics providers need to report to CMS. (Additional criteria will be added for 2012 and again for 2013.) Incentives are only available for organizations using a certified .
Why Should I Care about Certification?
Financial incentives for hospitals and "eligible providers" to adopt meaningful use of a certified electronic health record are only available to those that bill Medicare and Medicaid. Since this requirement eliminates many Net Health clients from consideration, you may be wondering why we emphasize the fact that Net Health Employee Health and Occupational Medicine is a nationally certified product. Here's why.
A certified 's value goes well beyond qualifying a provider for incentive payments from the government. It ensures the ability to exchange data electronically with other providers. While this may not be of immediate significance to you, consider the near future: As the use of EHRs spreads throughout the United States, other healthcare providers will expect you to provide data electronically, since they won't be staffed to receive manual input. Employers will recognize the cost of care savings available with EHRs, and will expect you to use one. With the growth of Personal Health Records (PHRs), your patients will soon be asking for their health records on a thumb drive to upload to their PHR. In the future, if you cannot electronically exchange data through a compatible system, you will become a "data island" within the healthcare community, and risk losing a competitive advantage.
A certified ensures data compatibility with Personal Health Records, referral providers, and hospitals.
Setting Up to Report Meaningful Use
To report on Meaningful Use, Net Health Employee Health and Occupational Medicine must gather pertinent information. That requires two things. The first is that your templates and wizards are set up to collect it, and second, that users enter it as a matter of routine. The topic Setup and Use of Net Health Employee Health and Occupational Medicine to Collect Meaningful Use Data provides a basic description of the requirements, the Net Health Employee Health and Occupational Medicine features that address the requirements, and what your providers will need to do to meet them. It also explains how to set up Net Health Employee Health and Occupational Medicine features to be ready for Meaningful Use reporting, including links to relevant topics.
One thing to note is that once setup has been completed, all the users need to do is use Net Health Employee Health and Occupational Medicine as intended to fully chart visits! No extra effort is required for Meaningful Use.
Structured Data
A number of the Meaningful Use objectives and measures refer to "structured data". This is a vital concept in the electronic exchange of health information, not just for Meaningful Use, but also for the industry wide move towards exchanging patient health information. Be sure to read the topic titled What Is Structured Data to learn more.
Withholding Health Information from the Patient
Meaningful use includes requirements about providing patients with access to their health records. There is a qualification to these requirements. There may be occasions when a provider wishes to withhold certain sensitive information from a patient for a period of time. For example, they might want to deliver the news of a positive HIV test face-to-face rather than have the patient learn about it when viewing the patient portal. For that reason, a certified must provide the ability to withhold lab results, imaging/radiology results, and diagnoses until the provider releases them. This applies to the Formal Health Record and the Clinical Summary (printed with the Encounter Summary or Work Status Report.) A patient's lab and image / radiology results are withheld by checking the Results Withheld Pending Provider Release box on the medical activity on the visit record. Diagnoses are withheld by checking an equivalent box on the Problems List record. Unchecking the box later makes the item available to the patient.
Reporting on Meaningful Use
Two reports are required by to be eligible for incentives. First, each provider must document the meaningful use of an . The Net Health Employee Health and Occupational Medicine Meaningful Use Report lists each requirement does this. For each statistical measure the report shows the numerator, denominator, calculated percent, and the threshold rate for compliance with that objective. For other measures a text statement is printed about the status. For all measures, the report indicates whether the objective has been met or not met.
The second report is in fulfillment of one of the requirements, that three ambulatory clinical quality measures be reported to to CMS or the States. In Net Health Employee Health and Occupational Medicine, CMS Quality Reporting allows the provider to select from a list, subject to guidelines, the three measures to report.