Heubusch (2009), Defining Meaningful Use Is Important White Paper

Heubusch (2009), defining meaningful use is important because "it triggers $17 billion in Medicare and Medicaid incentives for the adoption of electronic health record systems." According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, "providers will reap benefits beyond financial incentives -- such as reduction in errors, availability of records and data, reminders and alerts, clinical decision support, and e-prescribing/refill automation." Standards defining meaningful use of EMS technologies must be set for ethical, legal, and fiscal reasons. Therefore, the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) published a series of white papers on the issue.

The nine-part AHIMA white paper series begins with a poorly written overview that does not provide a working definition of terms, offer meaningful use criteria, or any other pertinent data for that matter. Only four pages long, the "Overview of the Meaningful Use Final Rule" is practically useless. The second white paper is five pages long and defines the ARRA meaningful use program as being incentive-based rather than entitlement-based.Healthcare organizations are not required to apply, but will receive incentive payments. The document defines what qualifies as an electronic health record, as certified HER technology, as well as payment years and periods. A silly table outlining stages from 2011 to 2014 fills in the space that could be used to address the deeper ethical issues related to fair and meaningful use of patient electronic health data. The third white paper is about incentive payments and program requirements. Hospital-based physicians do not qualify for incentive payments.

The fourth AHIMA white paper is about meaningful use and HER certification. Using the same deplorable communication skills as the previous white papers, the author of this one uses vague terminology to discuss the issues related to information technology literacy. Standards, implementation specifications, certification criteria, qualified electronic health record, complete EHR, certified EHR technology, and disclosure are all explained in….....