HIT Policy Committee Establishes Meaningful Use Workgroup

..

In the May HIT Policy Committee meeting 3 primary areas were determined and workgroups were created. These workgroups presented updates and draft recommendations at the June 16 meeting.

 

Meaningful Use Workgroup

The workgroup was charged to make recommendations to the HIT Policy Committee regarding the process for defining and revising meaningful use and national goals, proposed new meaningful use definitions and national goals and standards and policy priorities to support meaningful use and national goals. The ultimate vision is to enable significant and measurable improvements in population health through a transformed health care delivery system.

 

The draft presented meaningful use in phases from 2011 through 2015 with objectives and measures for the five defined key goals; improve quality, safety, and efficiency, engage patients and their families, improve care coordination, improve population and public health and reduce disparities, ensure privacy and security protections. A matrix gave further visuals on the health outcomes and the phasing of objectives and measures. View the matrix here.

 

The committee discussion brought about enough additional information and comments to table the draft until the next meeting on July 16. There is now a public comment period through 6/26/09 at 5pm.

 

Certification/Adoption Workgroup

This workgroup was charged to make recommendations to the HIT Policy Committee on issues related to the adoption of certified electronic health records, that support meaningful use, including issues related to certification, health information extension centers and workforce training. 

 

Health Information Exchange Workgroup

This workgroup was charged to make recommendations to the HIT Policy Committee on policies, guidance governance, sustainability, and architectural, and implementation approaches to enable the exchange of health information and increase capacity for health information exchange over time. The presentation outlined the ongoing considerations identified. It is important to realize that meaningful use and HIE are not programmatically connected, but the meaningful use definition will help clearly set high level expectations for HIE over time. At the same time, governance, policies and technical approaches need to proceed in parallel with the evolution of the definition of meaningful use and the criteria for health information exchange.

.