Healthcare Groups Want Meaningful Use Evaluated Before Stage 3

Though the final rules for Meaningful Use Stage 3 aren’t due to take effect until 2016, ONC has already made the draft rules available for public comment.  And comments, to be sure, the agency is getting.

While various groups have chosen their own details to critique, the general consensus seems to be that ONC is getting ahead of itself and ought to give Meaningful Use Stage 1 and 2 a good hard look first.

Accordng to a nice summary from iHealthBeat, here’s where some of the major healthcare groups stand:

* The American Hospital Association is recommending that ONC fund a comprehensive evaluation of MU generally, and while it does, hold off on finalizing Stage 3 recommendations.

*  CHIME, too, is asking ONC to evaluate the existing Meaningful Use program to decide whether achieving stage 3 is realistically possible by 2016.

* The Federation of American Hospitals is also arguing that ONC needs to evaluate current Meaningful Use requirements.  Also, in its letter to ONC, the group argues that the existing structure of two years per stage doesn’t cut it.

* The AMA weighed in with its own recommendation that ONC evaluate Meaningful Use as is before moving ahead. It also suggested changing some thresholds to  make them more reachable; greater flexibility in program requirements; change the certification process to address usability; and improve HIT’s capability to share patient data.

Personally, I think the idea of doing an extensive Meaningful Use evalulation sounds like a good one, and I hope ONC actually does so.  When you’re setting new standards that affect so many providers, why not gather some data on how existing standards work?

About the author

Anne Zieger

Anne Zieger is a healthcare journalist who has written about the industry for 30 years. Her work has appeared in all of the leading healthcare industry publications, and she's served as editor in chief of several healthcare B2B sites.

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