Making Meaningful Use Meaningful

A short three years ago, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) was funded at a level of less than $150 million. Today, thanks to the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act of 2009 (HITECH)—part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)—the ONC received a budget of over $2 billion. In addition, no less than an additional $19 billion is set aside to facilitate the adoption of electronic medical records over the next decade.

For both industry and government, budgets provide a more reliable picture of strategy than do policy statements. Therefore, there is little doubt that the current administration expects health information technology to play an important role in reducing healthcare costs while improving quality, safety, and access, a high priority of the president.

To accomplish this goal, adoption of technology is not enough. These new tools must be utilized effectively to achieve desirable and measureable results. Therefore, almost all of the incentive funding available to providers for the adoption of health information technology is tied to the “meaningful use” of that technology.

So what is “meaningful use?” Perhaps former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart provides some guidance. In a 1964 opinion on an obscenity case (Jacobellis v. Ohio) the late Justice Stewart described hard-core pornography as follows:

“It is hard to define, but I know it when I see it”

In spite of the work performed by many ONC committees to date, many working in healthcare believe the ONC is taking the same approach to defining “meaningful use.”

To its credit, the ONC is working to offer providers a hard and fast definition of meaningful use backed up by exactly defined, collectable measures. By statute, the secretary of health and human services has until December 31, 2009, to issue an interim rule on meaningful use. As the rule must go out for comment for a minimum period of time, a final rule is not expected until late Q1, 2010.

Source: Making Meaningful Use “Meaningful” – PSQH, November/December, 2009

Photo Courtesy of Don Guerwitz Photography – Young Pioneers, Havana, Cuba.