The following excerpt is from an article found on Medcity News. It was written by David Harlow.
The Meaningful Use - Stage 3 proposed rule has been released, with official publication due on March 30. Likewise, the 2015 edition of EHR certification criteria and related rules. Check out the CMS presser and ONC fact sheet.
Key to these rules, which lay the foundation for a post-Meaningful Use incentive-driven Health IT ecosystem, is the use of APIs - for the uninitiated, "application programming interfaces" - or simplified connectors that allow for easier transfer of data. The Meaningful Use requirements have themselves been simplified -- whittled down to eight high-level requirements, expressed as program goals or objectives:
- Protect Patient Health Information
- Electronic Prescribing
- Clinical Decision Support
- Computerized Provider Order Entry
- Patient Electronic Access to Health Information
- Coordination of Care through Patient Engagement
- Health Information Exchange (HIE)
- Public Health and Clinical Data Registry Reporting
The objectives and their associated measures are designed to:
- Align with national health care quality improvement efforts.
- Promote interoperability and health information exchange.
- Focus on the 3-part aim of reducing cost, improving access, and improving quality.
For most of the eight objectives, two out of three measures must be met. (Core and optional measures have been replaced with required objectives mixed with some flexibility in how to demonstrate compliance with the objectives.) The feds have done away with many measures, including those that have "topped out" (i.e., most, if not all, providers meet or exceed the requirements prescribed in Stage 1 or 2).
Read the full article here.
