EHR's Stage 2 meaningful use standards are out in fact sheet form and as a proposed rule.
Farzad Mostashari, U.S. National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, announced the proposed rule's impending release Thursday at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) annual conference in Las Vegas, NV. The fact sheet and proposed rule came out Thurday evening.
The content is mainly as expected and predicted by experts. Most noteworthy feratures are:
-
Extension of deadlines. Previously, if you attained Stage 1 in 2011, you'd have to hit Stage 2 in 2013; now you have until 2014.
-
So, as HealthLeaders Media puts it, "Regardless of when they start, everyone would have two years in Stage 1, two years in Stage 2, and two years in Stage 3."
-
Number of objectives. In Stage 1, providers and hospitals had to meet (or be excluded from) all of the core objectives and 5 out of the 10 "menu" objectives. In Stage 2 must meet 17 core objectives and 3 of 5 menu objectives; hospitals and CAHs must meet 16 core objectives and 2 of 4 menu objectives.
-
Patient records. They've been allowed to see them for years, but in Stage 2 you'll be required to let them access them online.
-
CPOE. Computerized provider order entry (CPOE) capability is no longer optional, and will include laboratory and radiology orders as well as pharmacy. CPOE "must be utilized to create the first record of any type for the order," says the rule, and be used for more than 60% of orders during the EHR reporting period.
And, of course, the non-compliant will eventually get "payment adjustments"
Meaningful Use Stage 1 of the drive to universal EHR compliance went pretty well, HHS says, at least in U.S. hospitals, wherecompliance doubled from 16% to 35% in the past two years. (Of course, it took billions of dollars in incentives to achieve this.)
GE Healthcare's Mark Segal told DOTmed, "[CMS] is trying to eliminate ambiguity in wording that then requires clarifications to be written and then clarifications on the clarifications. So I think in general they have learned from what they did before."
Look for an in-depth story on the proposed rule in next week's Part B News.