Meaningful Use

As we head into Congress' lame-duck session, the national policy agenda for healthcare CIOs will revolve around meaningful use, cybersecurity, ICD-10 and patient safety. At the CHIME 2014 Fall CIO Forum, Capitol Hill insiders offered strategies for managing the multitude of rules.

When Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell snagged national coordinator Karen DeSalvo, MD, to help in the Ebola fight, neither entity said whether she would return to ONC or stay on as acting assistant secretary at HHS over the long term. It turns out that she will continue her ONC work in several ways even while assigned to the Ebola detail.

The American Medical Association released a statement Monday that points to the organization's concern over the recent departure of key leaders from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. The ONC exits most recently include the coordinator herself, Karen DeSalvo, MD.

Charles Jaffe, MD, CEO of standards organization HL7, came away from the joint meeting of the federal Health IT Policy and Health IT Standards committees earlier this week, thinking that the industry could move faster on interoperability. And HL7 has just the thing to change the game.

A coalition of healthcare associations today called on HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell to revamp the meaningful use program. "Without changes to the MU program and a new emphasis for interoperable EHRs/EMRs systems and HIT infrastructure, we believe that the opportunity to leverage these technologies will not be realized," the organizations wrote.

Stage 2 of meaningful use is supposed to be about interoperability of data, with electronic records flowing securely between sites as needed to help hospitals and doctors provide better care. But the number of attestations to Stage 2 has been anemic, and there is plenty of anecdotal evidence suggesting true interoperability is a long way off.

Health IT infrastructure has made significant progress in recent years, with EHR adoption among hospitals and physicians growing. However, the development of health information exchanges and interoperability - needed to provide more effective care - still has a long way to go.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will reopen the submission period for meaningful use hardship exception applications.

Even as it competes with the many showy distractions Las Vegas has to offer, the upcoming MGMA conference will be zeroing in on the complex and challenging issues facing physicians and practice managers today.

Denis Tanguay, CIO at Central Maine Healthcare in Lewiston, Maine, talks about meaningful use Stage 2 readiness.