HHS has published final rules on meaningful use. They are more flexible. The rules are posted all over the web and I’ve provided some links at the bottom of this post. More than $28 Billion is on the line to help you make the transition to electronic records.
During this morning’s press conference, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said, “For years, health policy leaders on both sides of the aisle have urged adoption of electronic health records throughout our health care system to improve quality of care and ultimately lower costs. Today, with the leadership of the President and the Congress, we are making that goal a reality.”
So, if you are a physician and you’ve been holding back, the time to act is now. And if you have any doubts on why this is so important to your practice, your patients and America consider this:
While 46 percent of U.S. primary care doctors report using Electronic Medical Records – up from 28 percent in 2006 – they lag well behind:
•Netherlands (99 percent),
•New Zealand (97 percent),
•U.K. (96 percent),
•Australia (95 percent),
•Italy (94 percent),
•Norway (97 percent),and
•Sweden (94 percent).
US Healthcare is big—$2.5 Trillion. The government has a huge stake.
U.S. Health Insurance Coverage: 2009 data published in 2010
Note: Totals exceed U.S. population dues to crossover public/private coverage
And here is something else to consider……………….
We simply must find more efficient, less costly ways to provide health information and medical services to all Americans. Digitizing health records is but a starting point on this journey. It is what we do next that counts.
To begin your journey, get the facts. Then, enter the race.
A CMS/ONC fact sheet on the rules is available at http://www.cms.gov/EHRIncentivePrograms/
Technical fact sheets on CMS’s final rule are available at http://www.cms.gov/EHRIncentivePrograms/
A technical fact sheet on ONC’s standards and certification criteria final rule is available at http://healthit.hhs.gov/standardsandcertification.
RULES:
http://www.ofr.gov/OFRUpload/OFRData/2010-7207_PI.pdf
http://www.ofr.gov/OFRUpload/OFRData/2010-17210_PI.pdf
Bill Crounse, MD Senior Director, Worldwide Health Microsoft
One of our programmers has used Microsoft Pivot and Silverlight 4 to make the most useful patient registry presentation imaginable. We understand that Pivot is still an "experiment", and this is a plea to make it a mainstream Microsoft product.
wgotthold@wvmedical.com