Draft Stage 3 Meaningful Use recommendations expected in August

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) says it will release draft recommendations for Stage 3 of Meaningful Use by August and reconcile them in September or October with the Stage 2 final rule.

The Meaningful Use Workgroup of ONC's Health IT Policy Committee reported in its July 3 meeting that it then plans to present its preliminary recommendations for Stage 3 to the Health IT Standards Committee for feedback, issue a Request for Comment in January 2013, and report to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services in July 2013.

Several of the proposed recommendations for Stage 3 from the Workgroup's Public Health Sub workgroup include:

  • The capability of the electronic health record to receive and review a patient's immunization history supplied by a registry
  • The capability to received clinical decision support regarding recommended immunizations based on the historical record
  •  The capability to electronically send standardized healthcare associated infection and vaccine adverse events reports to applicable public health agencies.

The care coordination subgroup reported that it is focused on the ability of EHRs to evolve to a collaborative care model of patient treatments, including the capability of a longitudinal history across multiple settings over a patients' lifetime and a standards-based care plan.   

"We think that by Stage 3, we need to begin to transition from a venue-specific orientation to a more patient-centric solution," Charlene Underwood, leader of the subgroup, said, according to Healthcare Informatics

To learn more:
- access the meeting agenda, materials and audio (from July 3)
- read the Healthcare Informatics article