A Strategic Approach to Meaningful Use

Meeting federal criteria for the meaningful use of electronic health records (EHRs) requires providers to demonstrate that they have not only installed certified systems to enable electronic capture, sharing and reporting of health information, but that they have been implemented in a way that allows caregivers to provide better, safer patient care. To meet these criteria hospitals and health systems need to come up with innovative ways to drive systemic change in processes.

Learn how two leading organizations have found the right strategy for success:

High Support Leads to High Adoption For Centra Health, a nonprofit system that provides a full continuum of health services in central Virginia, the key to high physician adoption of CPOE and EHR technology was providing adequate support. Centra has clinical people on call 24/7, and they staff a physician technology center from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m., when doctors typically round. The result was that 45 days after their EHR upgrade, Centra was able to begin their 90-day reporting period. More

Health Information Exchange Key to Meaningful Use Many people have forgotten that hurricane Katrina served as the catalyst for widespread adoption of interoperable electronic health records (EHRs), but not Memorial Hospital at Gulfport in Mississippi. After the medical records of regional residents were washed away, Memorial Gulfport took a leading role in launching the Mississippi Coastal Health Information Exchange (HIE). Today, Memorial Gulfport can share patient lab results, radiology reports and discharge summaries with five other hospitals that participate in the HIE, as well as prescription information from retail pharmacies. Memorial Gulfport VP and Medical Information Officer Richard Ferrans, MD, attributes their success to executive buy-in, clinician IT support and physician alignment. More