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Meaningful Use Today
How Stage 2 affects record release
Changes will drive organizations to implement a patient portal or personal health record application. By Steve Emery
T FOR HOSPITALS
he Meaningful Use Stage 2 Notice of Proposed Rule Making is out, and it would bring sweeping changes to how hospitals and eligible profes- sionals release records and other information
to patients. Essentially, CMS is dropping three Stage 1 reporting cri- teria and replacing them with a core requirement for patient online access to medical records. CMS’ goal is to move the release of information (ROI) process from labor intensive and paper based to electronic and paper free. This is a welcome change for HIM professionals and other ancillary departments that have been pulling fi les, scanning or making photocopies of records, and sending information to patients via snail mail for years.
Bottom line for providers
The bottom line for providers is that Stage 2 MU changes with regards to these specifi c criteria will drive organizations to implement a patient portal or personal health record application and connect their EHR systems to these systems. Through these efforts, it is expected that patient requests to the HIM department for medical records will decrease, as patients will be able to obtain
Steve Emery is director of product management, HealthPort.
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records themselves online and at any time. To make the new objective and measures truly “meaning- ful,” facilities must advertise their portals and get patients to use them. Finally, only a minimum set of data is required to be available online. Facilities must still have a process to accommodate patients’ paper requests for other portions of their records.
HMT 6 April 2012 HEALTH MANAGEMENT TECHNOLOGY
Stage 1 criteria being dropped
Patient electronic copies of medical records within three business days.
The “menu” requirement for “timely access” on the EP list.
Stage 1 criteria being dropped
Patient electronic copies of medical records within three business days.
Electronic copies of discharge instructions at time of discharge.
Stage 2 criteria added
OBJECTIVE: Provide patients the ability to view online, download and transmit infor- mation about a hospital admission.
MEASURES: MUST PASS TWO More than 50 percent of all patients who are discharged from the inpatient or emer- gency department of an eligible hospital of CAH have their information available online within 36 hours of discharge. AND
More than 10 percent of all patients who are discharged from the inpatient or emer- gency department of an eligible hospital or CAH view, download or transmit to a third party their information during the EHR reporting period.
FOR ELIGIBLE PROVIDERS Stage 2 criteria added for EPs
OBJECTIVE: Provide patients the ability to view online, download and transmit their health information within four business days of the information being available to the EP.
MEASURES: MUST PASS TWO More than 50 percent of all unique patients seen by the EP during the EHR reporting pe- riod are provided timely (within four business days as above) online access to their health information subject to the EP’s discretion to withhold certain information. AND
More than 10 percent of all unique patients seen by the EP during the EHR reporting period (or their authorized representatives) view, download or transmit to a third party their information.