Stage 2 Meaningful Use and HIE
It’s been almost two weeks since ONC’s announcement at HIMSS 2012 of proposed Stage 2 meaningful use requirements, plenty of time to at least skim the 452-page document sent to the Federal Register. Health information exchange is a fundamental part of Stage 2 meaningful use. Here’s a recap of some more notable blog posts on this subject:
Fred Trotter over at O’Reilly Media blogs about the Direct Project being required for Stage 2 meaningful use. The Direct Project was launched in March of 2010. The project is based on the initial recommendations from the HIT Policy committee’s Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN) work group which outlined the policy and technical framework for health information to be exchanged over the Internet. Trotter writes in his post that “the Direct Project has a simple but ambitious goal: to replace the fax machine as the point-to-point communications tool for healthcare. That goal depends on adoption and nothing spurs adoption like a mandate. Every Health Information Exchange (HIE) in the country is going to be retooling as the result of this news. Some of them will be totally changing directions.” Read his full post here.
Brian Ahier, a leading voice on health information exchange and an upcoming guest on our MU Live! internet radio show, also writes about the Direct Project saying: “The stage 2 meaningful use requirement that a summary of care record must be transmitted between providers at transitions in care is ramped up and using paper is no longer an option. Secure messaging is a requirement, and there is a standards and certification requirement that Direct Project protocols are enabled in the EHR. The health information exchange requirement goes from merely performing one test to the ability to connect to at least three external providers in the primary referral network (but outside delivery system that uses the same EHR) or establish an ongoing bidirectional connection to at least one health information exchange organization. ” You can read Brian’s full post here.