ARRA EHR Stimulus Bill Benefits

In the press release I wrote about in my previous CCHIT certification post, they had a nice summary list of the meaningful use requirements as we know them today:
• Allow patients to access clinical information
• Comply with state and federal privacy, security and data sharing regulations
• Document patient progress and provide clinical summaries
• Exchange critical information with other care providers
• Implement drug interaction safeguards
• Send patient reminders about follow-up and preventive care
• Submit immunization and laboratory data to relevant public health registries
• Use computerized physician order entry systems to transmit prescription

Interestingly, this is what I think many doctors consider meaningful use of an EHR:
• Lower costs
• Increase revenue
• Lower charting time
• Oh yes, and better patient care

A bit of a generalization, but you get the point. The good news is that the benefits in my list are possible with an EMR. It’s just that the HITECH stimulus money may or may not promote those benefits.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

2 Comments

  • Hitting these certification standards is going to be tough. On their own, they are all doable. But the standards are a bit of a moving target and haven’t been revealed completely.

    Steve
    Mitochon Systems
    mitochonsystems.com

  • Steve,
    We’ll see what HHS comes out with at the end of the month. However, if the criteria that HHS comes out with is vague and difficult to understand, then you’re right that it will be a challenge to meet the criteria. Here’s hoping that they’ll lower the bar and make it dead simple to attain.

Click here to post a comment
   

Categories