The Health IT Policy Committee on Tuesday voted to approve the Meaningful Use Work Group's Stage 3 recommendations.
The recommendations--scaled back 30 percent from the initial number--will now go to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, according to Healthcare Informatics. The agency will put out a final rule in 2015.
The article notes that the workgroup eliminated eight of 26 initial recommendations, including some that dealt with care planning, imaging, medication adherence and reminders.
As reported in February, the workgroup had seven new recommendations for Stage 3 with four areas of emphasis: clinical decision support, patient engagement, care coordination and population management.
At the meeting, National Coordinator for Health IT Karen DeSalvo stressed that Meaningful Use is only one tool the ONC has to advance the health IT agenda.
"This is the next chapter of this program, but not the last chapter," she said, according to the article.
Some attendees at the meeting said the scaled-back measures won't help healthcare systems reach interoperability, despite the extensive time and money invested. Others thought the committee should toss out even more recommendations because of the burden they place on vendors and providers.
DeSalvo also announced at the meeting that Jacob Reider, M.D., will now serve as acting principal deputy national coordinator. Reider was previously acting national coordinator after Farzad Mostashari, M.D., resigned in 2013.
To learn more:
- read the Healthcare Informatics article
- here are the committee meeting materials
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