CMS Releases New Health IT 'Meaningful Use' Rules February 24, 2012 EHR, Technology computerized physician order entry, CPOE, electronic health records, meaningful use, Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT 0 It’s time to take electronic health records to the next level. CMS on Thursday released their second-stage guidelines for “meaningful use” of electronic records, which advocates say have the potential to reduce medical errors and streamline care. The proposed rules require doctors and hospitals to significantly step up their usage, as well as better engage patients and improve the transferability of records. Under the proposed Stage 2 standards, hospitals as well as eligible professionals—the latter category includes physicians not employed by hospitals—would have to use Computerized physician order entry (CPOE) for more than 60% of medication, laboratory and radiology orders, double the share required under the Stage 1 standards. The CPOE requirement is one of more than a dozen core objectives that hospitals and EPs would have to meet as part of demonstrating their meaningful use of electronic health-record systems, which would make them eligible to receive federal health IT incentive payments. Other core objectives for both hospitals and EPs include the use of electronic prescribing for more than 50% of prescriptions issued, the recording of demographic data for more than 50% of patients, recording of vital signs in more than 80% of patient encounters and recording smoking status for more than 80% of patients. In an effort to promote electronic engagement with patients, Stage 2 would require that more than 50% of patients be provided online access to their health information and demonstrate that more than 10% had actually accessed that information. Among the proposed menu objectives for EPs are electronic recording of family health history for more than 20% of patients, successful ongoing transmission of syndromic surveillance data, successful ongoing transmission of cancer case information and successful ongoing transmission of data to a specialized cancer registry. For hospitals, menu objectives include electronic recording of advance directives for more than 50% of patients and the use of electronic prescribing for more than 50% of discharge prescriptions. Comments are closed.
