{"id":387,"date":"2011-12-23T09:53:52","date_gmt":"2011-12-23T09:53:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ecareindia.com\/blog\/?p=387"},"modified":"2016-06-29T12:02:51","modified_gmt":"2016-06-29T12:02:51","slug":"ehr-and-meaningful-use","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ecareindia.com\/blog\/ehr-and-meaningful-use\/","title":{"rendered":"EHR and meaningful use"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"<\/a>EHR has been around for more than 15 years now, but only in the last couple of years has there been an active and conscious move towards adoption.\u00a0 The impetus was provided by the ARRA Act that incentivized the adoption and implementation of the EHR in Clinical practices.\u00a0 Though the deadline for implementation is 2015, clinical informatics confirms that more than 50% of the surveyed healthcare professionals are already using EHR for their practice and more than 90% of them are happy and as adept at using the EHR as they were with the paper SuperBills. But, does this mean that the Practices are complying fully and satisfying the main objectives of the incentive plan for EHR adoption? The answer to that question is self-evident. Moreover, just implementing the EHR is beneficial to the Providers to a small extent, but does not meet with the final objectives of either the ARRA Act or CMS.\u00a0 \u00a0EHR shouldn\u2019t be implemented out of the fear of getting penalized (after 2015) or for the sake of incentives. EHR should be considered as an aid that makes the delivery of healthcare effective. CMS has clearly stated that the mere buying of the EHR product will not satisfy the needs of the meaningful use.<\/p>\n

The agenda behind EHR implementation is to have a de-centralized but inter-operable system for streamlining healthcare delivery and improving quality of care thereby serving patients better.\u00a0 This is achieved through the inter-operability that exists between the Scheduler, EHR, e-prescribing tool, Medical Billing software and the ability to receive lab and\/or radiology reports.\u00a0 The EHR is also designed to enable greater portability of patient information with enhanced security. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The advantages for CMS is the ability to easily cull data from Providers across the country and process it into actionable information.\u00a0 A classic example would be something like data about the mean age of onset of diseases partially attributed to lifestyle like Diabetes Mellitus.\u00a0 With this data, CMS can convert it into actionable information for preventative healthcare guidelines and suggest a rewarding mechanism for patients in the form of \u2018credits\u2019 in their next premiums.<\/p>\n

Let us discuss the major requirements of \u2019Meaningful Use\u2018: <\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n