Question

Which step of "meaningful use" of EHRs for Medicare and Medicaid patients includes documenting the percentage of visits, diagnoses, prescriptions, immunizations, and other pertinent health information electronically?

Answer 1

The meaningful use step of EHRs for documenting various health information electronically falls under the HITECH Act objectives, which incentivize the improvement of healthcare services while minimizing costs. This step is intended to reduce administrative costs and enhance the coordinated delivery of patient care. Critical considerations around the policy include confidentiality, data protection, and patient control over their health information.

Step-by-step explanation:

The meaningful use step of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) for Medicare and Medicaid patients that includes documenting the percentage of visits, diagnoses, prescriptions, immunizations, and other pertinent health information electronically is part of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, which is a component of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. This initiative incentivizes healthcare providers to adopt, implement, or upgrade their EHR systems to improve health care quality, safety, and efficiency through the promotion of a more coordinated health care system. The implementation of EHRs aims to reduce administrative costs and improve patient care, aligning with the broader objectives of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to control increases in healthcare costs.

When considering the sharing of digital health records, policies must carefully weigh the improvement of healthcare quality and efficiency against the potential risks to individual privacy. Three critical questions that need to be addressed when developing such policies include:

• What measures will be put in place to protect the confidentiality and security of electronic health records?
• How can healthcare providers ensure that patient data is not improperly accessed or used?
• In what ways can patients have control over who has access to their health information?

To reduce the administrative burden and associated costs, the ACA has set a cap on these expenditures for healthcare providers and encourages the switch to EMRs.