Meaningful Use

As Karen DeSalvo, MD, prepares to take the reins as national coordinator for health information technology in 2014, here are 10 aspects of her background that may help define how she'll carry on the crucial work of her predecessors.

In an eventful 10 years for healthcare, meaningful use made an unmistakable mark as vendors large and small took advantage of an unprecedented opportunity. As one observer puts it: "Obama's stimulus was the catalyst that lit this industry up five years ago. We haven't looked back since."

"In 2003, fewer than 5 percent of hospitals in the U.S. had any form of electronic records," said David Brailer, MD, who became the nation's first "heath information czar" in 2004. "A smaller percentage of doctors' offices had them, probably less than 1 percent. It was something everyone knew was inevitable, but the fire had not been lit," he tells Healthcare IT News.

A joint CMS and ONC blog post today divulges the government's intentions to extend the timeline for meaningful use Stages 2 and 3. Under the revised schedule, Stage 2 would be extended through 2016 and Stage 3 would begin in 2017 for those providers that have completed at least two years in Stage 2.

Healthcare cloud services company ClearDATA Network closed an over-subscribed $14 million Series B funding round. The funding provides the company with capital to maximize its growth opportunities and momentum in the market, says ClearDATA President and CEO Darin Brannan.

As providers ready for meaningful use Stage 2 attestation and policymakers start designing Stage 3, CMS announced that the Medicare and Medicaid EHR incentive programs have paid out just shy of $17 billion to spur adoption thus far.

Now that we have experience with two stages of meaningful use, it's also clear that a three year cycle is needed to ensure safe, high value, well adopted, introduction of new IT functionality.

It's a hard knock life being a CIO in the healthcare sector. Federal regulations have shifted IT teams' priorities away from their typical laundry list of day-to-day tasks. But, as responsibilities pile up and overtime hours accumulate, this year as Thanksgiving nears, even CIOs have something to be grateful for.

Wish there could be a delay of Stage 2 meaningful use? Talk to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, not the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. And don't hold your breath.

If more office-based docs got on board with health information technology solutions, they'd be able to see more patients while also lightening their overall workload, according to the findings of a new Johns Hopkins study.