Meaningful Use: Official Draft Definition Released by HITSP

The anticipated release of the draft definition of "meaningful use" (mentioned in ARRA but not defined) was released by the HITPC (Health IT Policy Committee) today.  There is a public comment period ending June 26 (max 1000 characters).  All public comments should be sent to MeaningfulUse@hhs.gov.  The anouncement is on the HHS website.

The preamble describes the framework, while the matrix lays out the five policy priority areas and the target measures for each 2-year block (2011, 2013, 2015).  The 5 areas are:

• Improve quality, safety, efficiency, & reduce disparities

  
• Engage patients & families
  
• Improve care coordination

  
• Improve population & public health

  
• Ensure privacy & security protections

  

Each area has associated Care Goals (eg, use evidence-based order sets and CPOE; provide transparency of data-sharing to patient), along with Objectives and Measures for each of the three 2-year blocks.  Check out the Matrix for details (alternatively, just follow the white rabbit).

So, for example, under Improve Care Coordination, we have the following:

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Care Goal
Exchange meaningful clinical information among professional health care team

2011 Objectives 

(Goal is to electronically capture in coded format and to report health information and to use that information to track key clinical conditions)

• Exchange key clinical information among providers of care (e.g., problems, medications, allergies, test results) [OP, IP]
  
• Perform medication reconciliation at relevant encounters [OP, IP]
  

2011 Measures

• Report 30-day readmission rate [IP]
  
• % of encounters where med reconciliation was performed [OP, IP]
  
• Implemented ability to exchange health information with external clinical entity (specifically labs, care summary and medication lists) [OP, IP]
  
• % of transitions in care for which summary care record is shared (e.g., electronic, paper, eFax) [OP, IP] 
  

2013 Objectives 

(Goal is to guide and support care processes and care coordination) 

• Retrieve and act on electronic prescription fill data [OP, IP]
  
• Produce and share an electronic summary care record for every transition in care (place of service, consults, discharge) [OP, IP]
  
• Perform medication reconciliation at each transition of care from one health care setting to another [OP, IP]
  

2013 Measures

• Additional public reports using NQF-endorsed HIT-enabled quality measures [OP, IP]
  
• % of transitions where med reconciliation was performed [OP, IP]
  
• % of encounters where fill data accessed [OP]
  
• % of encounters where clinical information is shared with external clinical entities [OP, IP]
  

2015 Objectives 

(Goal is to achieve and improve performance and support care processes and on key health system outcomes) 

• Access comprehensive patient data from all available sources
  

2015 Measures

• Aggregated clinical summaries from multiple sources available to authorized users [OP, IP]
  
• NQF-endorsed Care Coordination Measures (TBD)
  

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There was a lot of discussion about moving some of the more distant objectives up sooner.  This part of the discussion (before the lunch break) was tabled, and a plan to release a revised draft was described.  

There was also quite a bit of Twitter discussion as well (see search.twitter).

If you'd like to read the transcript of the conference call, check out Brian Ahier's blog.