Moving Physicians Forward With Meaningful Use

By Whitney L.J. Howell

When talk first started about moving healthcare providers away from paper files to electronic health records (EHRs), not everyone was convinced it was a good idea. Jane Jenning’s boss at Primary Medical Specialists in Portsmouth, Ohio, was one of them. “Making the move to a new system seemed too complicated for a doctor nearing the end of her career,” said Jennings, Primary Medical’s office manager. “She didn’t know if she wanted to invest the time and money into learning something new.” But that was before the office knew about the $44,000 incentive payment they could receive from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) for proving the office had fully implemented an accredited EHR and was using it efficiently. The problem, however, was finding the right one.

That’s when Ohio Health Information Partnership (OHIP), Ohio’s regional extension center (REC), took the lead. Not only did it help Primary Medical identify the best system, Jennings said, but it will also provide step-by-step guidance when the office goes live with its software of choice next month. “From the provider’s perspective, we want to meet meaningful use criteria,” Jennings said. “So rather than the piecemeal approach to an EHR system, it’s been very beneficial for us to take advantage of the work OHIP’s already done and the information it has.”

OHIP, also known as “The Partnership,” isn’t a one-of-a-kind group. Since 2010, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services’ Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) has invested $677M in 62 RECs nationwide. Their goal is to guide more than 100,000 primary care providers to EHR meaningful use. The on-the-ground assistance they provide is particularly valuable now – it’s crunch time for Stage 1 of meaningful use, which requires that eligible professionals meet 20 objectives related to their use of an EHR, as set forth by the CMS. As of last fall, only a small percentage of hospitals had achieved this first stage, and healthcare providers have only until Feb. 29, 2012, to prove they’ve reached this goal in order to qualify for incentive payments.

WHAT’S NEXT FOR RECS?
Guiding providers to meaningful use proficiency is a time-limited responsibility. In order to maintain relevancy, RECs leaders are already considering what the groups’ next steps might be. For OHIP, the next big challenge will be integrating providers into the state’s HIE. But there are other opportunities available, such as coding or patient privacy, to help providers and patients span the existing knowledge gap, McPhillips said. The goal, he said, will be to foster a better-educated and empowered patient population that can more actively participate in their own healthcare. “There’s a lot of transformation going on in healthcare today, whether it be health information technology, healthcare reform, patient-centered medical homes …” he said. “It’s a sophisticated industry in which the principle consumer, the patient, is really at a knowledge loss – so the challenge to empower the patient is health literacy. So we recognize that as a huge opportunity that is untapped.”