2015 In Review
By John Halamka MD – It’s now December and as each year ends, I always look back on the challenges and achievements of the past 12 months. Here’s my sense of 2015.
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EHR Incentive Program Status Report October 2015
CMS has released the most recent numbers for the EHR Incentive programs. Here are some Program-to-date highlights from this latest CMS report in October. Active registrants total over a half a million.
HIMSS 16 Sessions – Spotlighting Meaningful Use
HIMSS 16 (#HIMSS16) will be held at the Sands Expo in Las Vegas from February 29 – March 4. The theme this year is transforming health through IT. Ongoing use of EHR technology, meaningful use and developing future incentive programs will be hot topics
A Followup on the MU Path Forward
By John Halamka MD – After my previous post about my suggested path forward for Meaningful Use, I received a large number of comments. I thought it would be useful to summarize them and clarify some of my opinions. In general, 95% of commenters agreed that CMS should pivot the concept of Meaningful Use functional requirements into pay for performance rewards for achieving outcomes via MACRA.
AMA Adopts New Policies to Improve Health of Nation on Day Two of Interim Meeting
The American Medical Association (AMA), the premier national physician organization, gathered physician and medical student leaders representing all aspects of medicine during its Interim Meeting and voted to adopt new policies on emerging health care topics.
More Process over Substance
By William Hyman – Recently I addressed here the issue of physicians having to use certain functions of their EHR even if they didn’t need those functions to accomplish the desired outcome. Notably, it is required under Meaningful Use to have certain prompts occur whether or not those prompts are necessary.
To Support Value-Based Reimbursement, CHIME Calls for Streamlining MU
As the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) advances alternative payment models for physicians, the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) urged policymakers to streamline the Meaningful Use program and reduce the reporting burden on providers by better aligning quality measures.
The Path Forward for Meaningful Use
By John Halamka MD – My assessment of the current Meaningful Use program and a proposal to better serve the needs of stakeholders. I’m likely going to violate many rules with this post. First, it’s over 1500 words, which is not ideal for social media. Second, there are many who will find my conclusions politically unpopular. I’m not criticizing people, I’m just commenting on ideas.
When How is More Important than What
By William Hyman – A prevailing feature of Meaning Use (MU) is that certain things must be done by or with the EHR. Even if we assume that at least some of these dictated things are in fact important, the need to do them within or from the EHR has replaced the merit of simply doing them.