Tons of tweets and blogs appearing on the ONC interim final publication for EHR & meaningful use. We got 60 (actually 59 days) to submit comments. I say we hold the next HealthCamp at 7500 Security Boulevard, Baltimore, MD 21244-1850 :)

Below is the extract from page 14 (out of 136) of “Initial Set of Standards, Implementation Specifications, and Certification Criteria for Electronic Health Record Technology”.

To summarize - 2011 expand the use (structured data or not), 2013 expand it even more and encompass more structured data across wider data points (i.e radiology), 2015 start focusing on actually improving population health and give patient access to self-management

What I am missing in all this (granted I have not read the full 556 of 136 pages) but what happens to the filing cabinets of valuable data

3 Stages to population health

Stage 1 (beginning in 2011): The proposed Stage 1 meaningful use criteria
“focuses on electronically capturing health information in a coded format;
using that information to track key clinical conditions and communicating that
information for care coordination purposes (whether that information is
structured or unstructured, but in structured format whenever feasible);
consistent with other provisions of Medicare and Medicaid law, implementing
clinical decision support tools to facilitate disease and medication
management; and reporting clinical quality measures and public health
information.”

Stage 2 (beginning in 2013): CMS has proposed that its goals for the Stage 2
meaningful use criteria, “consistent with other provisions of Medicare and
Medicaid law, expand upon the Stage 1 criteria to encourage the use of health
IT for continuous quality improvement at the point of care and the exchange
of information in the most structured format possible, such as the electronic
transmission of orders entered using computerized provider order entry
(CPOE) and the electronic transmission of diagnostic test results (such as
blood tests, microbiology, urinalysis, pathology tests, radiology, cardiac
imaging, nuclear medicine tests, pulmonary function tests and other such data
needed to diagnose and treat disease). Additionally we may consider
applying the criteria more broadly to both the inpatient and outpatient hospital
settings.”

Stage 3 (beginning in 2015): CMS has proposed that its goals for the Stage 3
meaningful use criteria are, “consistent with other provisions of Medicare and
Medicaid law, to focus on promoting improvements in quality, safety and
efficiency, focusing on decision support for national high priority conditions,
patient access to self management tools, access to comprehensive patient data
and improving population health.”