Your Update to All Things Beacon and Meaningful Use

An interview with Intermountain Cottonwood Internal Medicine's Beacon Provider Champion

The Intermountain Healthcare Cottonwood Internal Medicine clinic has been a participating Beacon Clinic since August 2011. They have gained clinic-wide acceptance of the Beacon Program, increasing participation and improvement in their first diabetes measure in a short amount of time. Clinical staff was recently interviewed to provide insight on their successes in implementing quality improvement tasks in such a timely manner. FULL ARTICLE>>>

Clinic staff standing in front of their Beacon AIMS poster.

Demonstrating Success in Improving Diabetes Care Quality with Electronic Health Records

A study reported in the New England Journal of Medicine demonstrated success in improving diabetes care quality with Electronic Health Records (EHR), particularly when compared to "paper charts." Article authors noted the focus on Meaningful Use had not yet completely encompassed quality improvement or cost savings with EHR implementation and use. The authors, who practice in Cleveland, Ohio, analyzed data from seven different health care organizations that was gathered in the last couple of years. FULL ARTICLE>>> 

HHS extends a meaningful-use deadline

Eligible professionals that qualify as Stage 1 meaningful users in 2011 now have until 2014 to comply with Stage 2 Meaningful Use requirements.

Under the current rules for the Medicare portion of the electronic health-record system incentive program created under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, eligible professionals who qualified for incentive payments as Stage 1 meaningful users in 2011-the program's first year-would have to meet new and expectedly more stringent Stage 2 standards in 2013. However, according to a statement from HHS, if those providers had delayed participation until 2012, "they could wait to meet these new (Stage 2) standards until 2014 and still be eligible for the same incentive payment."  

The fast pace of changing stages and the assumed-to-be escalating meaningful-use criteria still being developed for Stage 2 have been deemed by critics as disincentives for early program participation. "To encourage faster adoption," according to the release, "the secretary announced that HHS intends to allow doctors and hospitals to adopt health IT this year, without meeting the new standards until 2014. Doctors who act quickly can also qualify for incentive payments in 2011 as well as 2012."