ONCHIT Releases Draft Guidelines for “Meaningful” EHR Use
[Posted 06/29/09]

Last week, Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONCHIT) released its first draft of proposed “meaningful use” standards. Physicians and hospitals will be required to meet these standards to receive subsidy payments for use and implementation of electronic health records under the federal economic stimulus law.

Beginning in 2011, qualifying Medicare physicians who demonstrate “meaningful use” stand to receive up to $44,000 under the program; qualifying Medi-Cal physicians stand to receive as much as $65,000.

The guidelines lay out goals and objectives for five broad topic areas: improving quality, safety, efficiency, and reducing health disparities; engaging patients and families; improving care coordination; improving population and public health; and ensuring adequate privacy and security protections for personal health information. Under each broad heading, the proposal lays out a series of objectives and quality reporting measures to be reached in 2011, 2013, and 2015. It appears that most if not all of the quality reporting measures for 2011 are based on the existing Physicians Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) system. 

CMA submitted comments on these draft guidelines, urging ONCHIT to create flexibility to accommodate different practice settings and sizes. As written, the guidelines would create one uniform standard for all physicians, regardless of practice setting or size.  This could create a scenario where solo and small group practices face an unfair burden. 

CMA also urged ONCHIT to equalize the onus of quality reporting between primary care and specialties. Currently the 2011 quality measures would a create greater reporting burden for primary care physicians. 

For more details, visit CMA’s HIT Resource Center.

Contact: David Ford, 916/551-2554 or dford@cmanet.org.