NUR 621 Implementing Meaningful Use Essay

Implementing Meaningful Use

The use of health information technologies has gained considerable popularity in the modern world. Health information technologies have been shown to result in outcomes that include reduction in medical errors; provision of efficient care, lowering of costs incurred in healthcare, and enhanced sharing of information among healthcare providers. The Federal Government has embraced interventions that include the provision of incentives through the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act to increase the use of health information technologies in health. The concept of Meaningful Use was also developed to encourage the safe use of healthcare technologies in health. The goals of Meaningful Use include improvement in the health of the population and public, adequacy in the security of personal health information, enhancement in care coordination, quality, efficiency safety, and reduction in health disparities alongside patient and family engagement in health issues affecting them. Therefore, this essay examines the three stages of Meaningful Use and their measures and challenges and barriers experienced by facilities in implementing each stage of the Meaningful Use.

Stages of Meaningful Use

The implementation of the meaningful use of health information technologies was set to occur in three phases. The first stage aimed at setting the foundation for the use of health information technologies. The focus was developing the foundation for the standards and requirements for the collection of clinical data alongside the provision of patients with their copies of their electronic health information. The measures that were used to evaluate success in this phase were varied. One of them was the utilization of computerized provider order entry in health organizations for medication orders alongside implementation of drug-allergy and drug-drug allergy check. The measures also focus on the creation of systems to enable the electronic transmission of prescriptions, updating of problem list of the patients and active diagnoses, recording of demographic information, and implementation of the clinical decision support rule. The additional measures that were used to evaluate the incorporation of laboratory results into electronic health records system, use of systems to send reminders to patients, provision of patients’ access to their electronic health information, and submit electronic data on immunization as per the law and practice (Penner, 2017).

The second step in the Meaningful Use focused on expanding the uses of the electronic health records and health information technologies from those listed in phase one. The focus was placed on advancing the clinical processes in data use to promote the use of electronic health records to support the priorities and aims of the National Quality Strategy. The criteria used for measurement in stage 2 aimed at ensuring continuous quality improvement in the points of care provision and exchange of electronic health information in the most effective and structured manner as possible. Core objectives and menu objectives were used to evaluate the realization of goals of electronic health records use in stage 2. The examples of measures of core objectives include the use of computerized provider order entry for laboratory, medication and radiology orders, development and transmission of electronically permissible drug prescriptions for more than 50% of the prescriptions, and recording of more than 80% of demographic data using electronic health formats. The menu objectives for evaluating the step include submission of surveillance data electronically, inclusion of imaging results and explanations to the CEHRT, and recording of patient data on health history in the form of structured data (Wani & Malhotra, 2018).

The third step in the Meaningful Use focuses on the use of CEHRT to enhance health-related outcomes. The aim of stage 3 is to ease the reporting process alongside aligning it with the existing CMS programs used in health. The realization of the goals of stage 3 is based on a number of measures. The measures include the ability of health organizations to protect their electronic health information in the CEHRT with physical, technical and administrative safeguards, generate alongside transmit prescriptions that permissible electronically using CEHRT, implementing the use of clinical decision support rules, and utilizing CEHRT to engage their patients (Penner, 2017). The other measures include provision of timely access to electronic health data to patients, active engagement with the public health agencies and submission of electronic health records of the patient populations utilizing certified electronic health records technologies.

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