Health care providers working toward Meaningful Use attestation have adopted electronic health record software and other clinical systems to improve their services. Despite some discontent with the program’s launch, the number of practices achieving Meaningful Use is on the rise in the U.S.
Federal officials report increase in attestation
According to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, presented at the first Health IT Policy Committee Meeting in 2015, nearly 80 percent of eligible hospitals have attested to Stage 1 requirements for Meaningful Use, FierceEMR reported. This represents a positive change for the federal program, which was experiencing considerable backlash at the end of 2014 for its difficulties.
Dawn Heisey-Grove, from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, explained that the eligible hospitals were those that had completed two years of Stage 1 attestation. The additional clarification showed that 56 percent of these facilities met the requirements for Stage 2, with 77 percent meeting that threshold through November 2014. Following the same criteria, only 42 percent of eligible physicians were able to attest to Stage 2 in 2014.
“It is very encouraging to see that enough providers were able to implement the software to get this high a percentage actually able to demonstrate Stage 2, based on the software that is available to them,” said Elizabeth Myers, of the CMS Office of E-Health Standards and Services, quoted by FierceEMR. “Our big concern over the past year has been the availability of software that is necessary for all providers to participate in the program. This means that the software availability issue is resolving slowly but surely.”
Through the beginning of 2015, 1,814 hospitals have successfully attested to Stage 2, according to reports from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Myers explained that roughly 240,000 physicians and more than 200 eligible hospitals have started to receive penalties for failing to attest to Meaningful Use in a timely manner.
While the rising frequency of attestation is good news, additional reports indicate that doctors are not meeting expectations surrounding patient engagement.
Communicating and sharing with patients is key to success
A recent national survey of more than 400 U.S. adults, conducted by TechnologyAdvice, showed that failing to meet consumer patient engagement expectations could have significantly negative consequences for health care providers, EHRIntelligence reported.
Roughly 60 percent of the respondents stated that the availability of digital services is an integral aspect of choosing physicians. However, 37.4 percent reported that their doctors had not offered any of the six services included in the study:
- Follow-up messaging
- Education material on conditions
- Online test results
- Secure communication channels
- Electronic appointment scheduling
- E-billing
“Primary care physicians are reporting some of the highest rates of EHR adoption to comply with government regulations and to receive incentives from Meaningful Use, but a significantly lower number of patients claim to have access to these patient portal services,” read the TechnologyAdvice report, quoted by EHRIntelligence.
Although the study might put responsibility on the clinical side, both providers and patients shoulder the blame for the lack of engagement. People may simply not be aware of the digital services doctors can provide from viable developers. But if physicians have these platforms in place, they have to do a better job of promoting them to engage more patients.
Connecting with patients is critical for doctors who want to successfully meet Meaningful use requirements and avoid potential fines from the federal government. As attestation numbers increase, engagement efforts are sure to become priorities for practices.
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Ronny Bachrach
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