Early Results of the Meaningful Use Program for Electronic Health Records

• Published in: The New England journal of medicine Vol. 368; no. 8; pp. 779 - 780
• Main Authors: Wright, Adam, Henkin, Stanislav, Feblowitz, Joshua, McCoy, Allison B, Bates, David W, Sittig, Dean F
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Massachusetts Medical Society 21.02.2013
• Subjects: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act; Computerized physician order entry; Electronic health records; Electronic Health Records - legislation & jurisprudence; Electronic Health Records - utilization; Electronic medical records; Fines & penalties; Meaningful Use - statistics & numerical data; Meaningful Use - trends; Medicare; Physicians - statistics & numerical data; United States; United States; United States > US; Alaska; North Dakota
• ISSN: 0028-4793; 1533-4406; 1533-4406
• DOI: 10.1056/NEJMc1213481

The HITECH Act created incentives to encourage adoption of electronic health records. As of May 2012, only 12.2% of 62,226 eligible professionals had attested to meaningful use, including 9.8% of specialists and 17.8% of primary care providers. To the Editor: In 2009, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act established Medicare and Medicaid incentive programs to encourage the adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) by hospitals and eligible professionals. Under Medicare, eligible professionals who show “meaningful use” of certified EHRs are eligible for payments up to $44,000, whereas eligible professionals who do not are subject to penalties after 2015. 1 , 2 Stage 1 requirements for meaningful use involve the use of key EHR functions, including electronic prescribing, drug–drug and drug–allergy checking, and the maintenance of problem, medication, and allergy lists. In stage 1, providers . . .