No Mercy on Meaningful Use

The MU Bar Remains Far Too High

It sounded promising. The HIT Policy Committee’s Workgroup on Meaningful Use was taking about flexibility, about no longer forcing providers to meet all its requirements in order to get one penny of HITECH stimulus cash. Dr. Paul Tang, chairman of the workgroup and CMIO at Palo Alto Medical Foundation, said he heard the provider community’s complaints about the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking’s high bar and 100 percent compliance requirement, so his team was recommending a more flexible approach, one that would allow hospitals and physicians to defer a few measures to later years, while still reaping the benefits of a good-faith effort. Read the rest of the column at Information Week.