Posts Tagged ‘measures’

Meaningful Use Core and Menu Requirements

Friday, August 27th, 2010

Core Objectives and Measures

All core objectives must be met, unless an exception applies. Several objectives do not allow exceptions.

Core Objective: Use computerized physician order entry (CPOE) for medication orders directly entered by any licensed health care professional who can enter orders into the medical record per state, local and professional guidelines.

Measure: More than 30 percent of unique patients with at least one medication in their medication list seen by the EP or admitted to the eligible hospital’s or CAH’s inpatient or emergency department (place of service 21 Inpatient hospital or 23 Emergency room – hospital) have at least one medication order entered using CPOE.

Core Objective: Implement drug/drug and drug/allergy interaction checks.

Measure: The EP/eligible hospital/CAH has enabled this functionality and has access to at least one internal or external formulary for the entire EHR reporting period.

Core Objective: Maintain an up-to-date problem list of current and active diagnoses.

Measure: More than 80 percent of all unique patients seen by the EP or admitted to the eligible hospital’s or CAH’s inpatient or emergency department (POS 21 or 23) have at least one entry, or an indication that no problems are known for the patient recorded as structured data. Read more »

Marshfield Clinic Sets an Example of EHR Meaningful Use

Friday, July 30th, 2010

One of the biggest challenges physicians face in regards to demonstrating meaningful use of electronic health records (EHRs), according to the American Medical Association (AMA), is the lack of certified EHR systems supporting meaningful use currently available in the market. If Marshfield Clinic in Wisconsin is any indication, however, hospitals eligible to participate in the EHR Incentive Program need not worry about the certified EHR technology they’ll use. Getting all their physicians on board will be a much greater obstacle.

Becoming a meaningful user of EHR technology is “more of an operational project than an IT project,” said Michael Cummens, Marshfield’s associate chief medical information officer.

For example, he said, orthopedic specialists often don’t see the value in taking patients’ vital signs or recording their smoking status, but these are government quality measures, so the key is to engineer the work flow so that someone else on the care team performs these tasks. This will serve to “minimize the demands on providers as much as possible,” Cummens said.

Modern Healthcare reports on how Marshfield Clinic’s proactive approach and positive attitude have put them ahead of the game—not just for EHR incentive requirements but for ICD-10 implementation as well.

Study Promotes EHR Use, Physicians Remain Wary

Monday, November 16th, 2009

A recent RAND Corporation study provides another incentive for physicians to implement electronic health care records (EHRs) — in addition to that really good one that mandates EHR meaningful use by 2014. According to the study, dedicated EHR use improves quality of care for patients and facilitates quality reporting for physicians. This, in turn, ensures eligible professionals (EPs) receive the full Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) incentive. An Ingenix survey, however, says many physicians remain skeptical that the benefits would outweigh the cost of implementing an EHR system. Read more »

2010 PQRI Proposed Rule Changes

Wednesday, July 1st, 2009

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released, July 1, Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) changes for the Calendar Year (CY) 2010. There are a number of proposed reporting options and reporting periods available. Some options require data submission by Dec. 31, 2010. Data reported through registries, however, is not due to CMS until 2011.

Read more »