Stage 3 of Meaningful Use will work to address key gaps in electronic health record functionality, to simplify/consolidate objectives and to new care models and national health priorities, according to draft recommendations made by the Health IT Policy Committee's Meaningful Use Workgroup last week.
The recommendations are based on Stage 3's focus on improving outcomes, and from the experiences of Stage 1 of Meaningful Use. For instance, since reporting is a costly burden on providers, the reporting requirements will be simplified, according to the workgroup.
Some of the new objectives recommended for Stage 3 include:
- Ensuring EHRs can assist with follow up on orders to improvement the management of results
- Providing patients with the ability to electronically submit patient generated health information
- Recording FDA unique device identifiers when patients have devices implanted
- Sending electronic notification of a patient's significant healthcare event to key members of a patient's care team
Other recommendations build on requirements in Stage 2, such as including higher standards for clinical decision support and the recording of notes.
The workgroup also acknowledged that some standards will need to be postponed to a "future" stage beyond Stage 3.
The committee's Tiger Team also reported at the meeting, recommending that for Stage 3, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services should "emphasize" that when an entity attests to conducting a security risk analysis, it is attesting to compliance with HIPAA's Security Rule with respect to such analysis. The team also recommended that the entity should identify, when attesting, who was responsible for the security risk analysis.
To learn more:
- read the Meaningful Use workgroup's recommendations (.pdf)
- check out the Tiger Team's report (.pdf)