EHRs - for the feds or for you?

Today, I'd like to add to a discussion of John's March 30 post at EMR and HIPAA, "Physician Reaction to Meaningful Use". The quoted physician is not alone in feeling that Meaningful Use has prevented EHRs from reaching their potential. Here's a sound byte to digest: meaningful use is for the government; meaningful usefulness is for you.

In the certification game, the big names rushed to be first. Though first to announce their success in achieving certification, they took months to roll it out to customers. Why? Because their doctors responded with comments like, "It may be certified but it's not usable." Thus began a new rush on development, the usability cycle.

In the eye care world, we had to remind ourselves and our users that MU has little to do with eye care, only insofar as we're part of the healthcare matrix. MU is not specialty specific. It's up to the vendor to ensure that the EHR meets the requirements of both government and doctors. Those are two different sets of needs. Now here's some good news. As the provisions of the HITECH Act continue to unfold, the gap between the government's needs and the doctor's needs will narrow. Let me explain.

Doctors in the process of adopting EHRs naturally think about their changing reality within the practice. How do EHRs change my workflow, my experience in the exam lane, my patient's experience within these four walls? Once the culture change in the practice has been embraced, it's not over. We're just more ready for the next step.

In 2012, we're through the first wave of EHR adoption and seeing Health Information Exchanges take center stage. That means we have to think outside our four walls and communicate with other providers like never before. The CCR and CCD, elements of all certified EHRs, will become an every day reality that not only transports the patient's problem list, medications, allergies and vital statistics between providers, it will also save providers minutes per exam. All these data will drop automatically into the exam record, significantly reducing manual data entry. Through state HIEs and other communication standards established by the HITECH Act, doctors will see benefits in EHRs that are not readily apparent today.

Circling back to the physician quote (“Meaningful use is the destructive component that all of medicine should be fighting as it clearly prevents the EMR from achieving its potential”), I have to say, "I understand but...!" It's a short-sighted comment by a doctor who isn't seeing the long range picture. Just as eye care providers cannot understand health care reform by looking only inside eye care, no one can understand health care reform by looking only at what's happening today. 

The transformation of healthcare is a journey with a sure destination. Many of us, not having looked at the roadmap, are simply along for the ride. A paper-based fee-for-service status quo was the true destructive force in health care. Meaningful use is a stepping stone to a brighter future, one that we'll be in a stronger position to appreciate once we're a little further down the road.

Alistair Jackson, M.Ed.

In the event you're new to EMRlogic Live, you should know that we like some other bloggers too. We focus on EHRs for eye care while others cover the broader picture. Two that we recommend are Jim Tate at HITECHAnswers and John at EMR and HIPAA.