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Looking to refine its Stage 2 recommendations before presenting them to the full HIT Policy Committee, the Meaningful Use Workgroup this week debated whether eligible providers (EPs) should have to report appropriate lab values, conditions or both to public health agencies. While hospitals are required to do so under Stage 1 of Meaningful Use, “EPs […]
One of the main gripes we have about politicians is they say whatever is necessary to get elected, then largely act as their predecessors had. In short – we are left with, at worst, broken, at best, unfulfilled, campaign promises. But the less nefarious and, thus, less satisfying reason for this eternal phenomenon is that […]
The HIT Policy Committee’s Meaningful Use Workgroup struggled to reach consensus on key Stage 2 requirements, with some accusing the group of being timid in certain areas, while others characterized proposed requirements as unrealistic in the given timeframe. Specifically in the area of providing patients electronic access to their hospital visit summaries through a Web-based […]
Faced with comments that its Meaningful Use Stage 2 draft recommendations and their associated timelines were too onerous, the Meaningful Use Workgroup, a subcommittee of ONC’s HIT Policy Committee, will examine how it can ameliorate the program’s timing, requirements, or both. While it is by no means certain the group will take such action, comments […]
When I was an undergraduate studying Anthropology, I decided to research the degree to which museum goers looked at exhibits with critical eyes. As I suspected, my surveys confirmed most visitors merely assumed everything was “accurate” because the presentation seemed so “official.” They never thought that the professionals charged with assembling the displays could, in […]
It was not immediately clear, at least to me, that HITECH would have the effect it has. By that I mean it would utterly and completely transform the healthcare IT industry. It took me some time to realize that, through Meaningful Use, the government’s stipulations of what it would take to earn the incentive funds […]
The HIT Policy Committee’s Meaningful Use Workgroup will request public comment on specific points (highlighted in yellow) of its Stage 2 matrix in the next few days. During a meeting held to fine-tune the questions, workgroup members slogged through each of those points, often attempting to locate the usually sought balance of empowering patients and increasing safety on the one hand, with not overburdening healthcare providers on the other.
HITECH’s Meaningful Use Stage 2 requirements started their year-plus journey through federal advisory committees, regulation writers, public comment and countless revisions after a draft set of recommendations were floated for discussion at this month’s HIT Policy Committee meeting. Outlined by Paul Tang, M.D., vice chair of the committee and chair of its Meaningful Use Workgroup, the measures generally seek to increase thresholds established in Stage 1 as they climb to a Stage 3 apex.
The merits of working with the FDA to help ONC craft an EMR certification program that addresses both pre- and post-market HIT patient safety issues were discussed at the HIT Policy Committee Workgroup on Certification and Adoption meeting held this week. On one side of the debate, HIT Software Entrepreneur and Workgroup Co-Chair Paul Egerman argued that the FDA could bring some significant value to the table in crafting a program.
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 […]
