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March 14, 2011

ifroehlich

HIT seeks to hit the right balance with Stage Two Meaningful Use


Health IT Policy Committee wants more integrated EHR measures in Stage Two – but recognizes that individual EHR use still has some catching up to do

Many of the “Meaningful Use” requirements for Stage One of the government’s EHR incentives program were meant to help individual providers get their feet wet with electronic medical records. In Stage Two, expect a shift to more coordinated care and seamless integration of electronic health records between providers.
Those are some of the objectives for Stage Two that the Health IT Policy Committee (HIT) is now weighing after studying public comments. At least one well-known body, the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) submitted comments that HIT should delay implementing Stage Two until enough providers had successfully achieved Stage One.
And the HIT committee does seem to have some concern that more emphasis on collecting data from multiple sources will be largely theoretical if too many providers still aren’t using electronic medical records.
On that issue, Dr. David Blumenthal, the outgoing national health IT coordinator, urged committee members to keep their focus on the bigger picture of electronic medical records, despite practical considerations of timing, because “the system will catch up with us eventually and the work done here will be valuable” when it does.
Here at DrFirst, we couldn’t agree more. In just the short time span since the Meaningful Use of EHR program began, new modular EHR solutions like Rcopia-MU™ are available that make the technology affordable for any medical practice.
At only $7 a day, with no hidden costs or extra fees, and free training, users can learn the basics of Rcopia-Mu in a single session. After a week or two, users are pretty much flying through the solution. (And they can receive up to $21K in incentive money this year in ninety days or less!)
Expect more providers to get on board with electronic health records in the months ahead as the secret gets out that cost and time are no longer barriers to full Meaningful Use of electronic health records.
 
 
 


About ifroehlich

Ms. Froehlich has been with DrFirst since its inception in 2000. In her role as Director of Marketing, she oversees the planning, directing, and coordinating all marketing and public relations efforts at DrFirst. Ms. Froehlich has a B.S. in Communications from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana.