The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT has taken another step to encourage providers to register and attest to Meaningful Use of their electronic health records, posting 13 case studies on its website to reveal what other providers have experienced.
Each of the case studies focuses on a subset of the Meaningful Use Stage 1 requirements. They also highlight, where applicable, the providers' interactions with the regional extension centers (RECs). The RECs are tasked with helping eligible professionals and some institutional providers successfully attest to Meaningful Use.
For example, the case study of Primary Health Medical Group, based in Garden City, Idaho, lists the highlights of its EHR system implementation, but primarily focuses on how the provider group implemented a patient portal. The case study addresses how the group piloted the portal, its strategy for encouraging patient use, sample talking points it used with patients and how it routed and responded to messages.
ONC regularly publishes information to help providers achieve Meaningful Use, such as research studies and the steps to take to implement an EHR. ONC recently also posted a new training game to help physician practices assess how well they keep their confidential patient information secure, an important component of Meaningful Use.
Almost $7 billion in incentive payments have been made thus far pursuant to the EHR incentive program.
To learn more:
- here are the case studies
- learn from ONC the steps to take to implement EHRs
- read about the RECs