Human Recovery And Reinvestment Act ( Arra )

The HITECH Act supports the concept of electronic health records - meaningful use, an effort led by Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS ) and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC). HITECH proposes the meaningful use of interoperable electronic health records throughout the United States health care delivery system as a critical national goal. Meaningful Use is defined as the minimum U.S. government standards for using electronic health records (EHR) and for exchanging patient clinical data between healthcare providers, between healthcare providers and insurers, and between healthcare providers and patients. Its rules, known as meaningful use measures or meaningful use criteria, determine whether a healthcare provider may receive federal funds from the Medicare EHR Incentive Program, the Medicaid EHR Incentive Program or both, in cases of "dually eligible" practitioners (EP) and eligible

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the electronic health record mandate. Who started it and when? I will discuss the goals of the mandate. I will discussion will how the Affordable Care Act ties into the mandate of Electronic Health Record. It will describe my own facility’s EHR and what steps are been taken to implement it. I will describe the term “meaningful use,” and it will discuss possible threats to patient confidentiality and the what’s being done by my facility to prevent Health Information and Portability Accountability Act or HIPAA violations.

In 2009, the Health Technology for Electronic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) of 1996 was expanded. This expansion included mandated guidelines for health care systems in the Unites States to continue implementing of Electronic Health Records (EHR) in health care settings by 2016 and added a provision to improve protection of patient health information through privacy and security Turk (2015) . The implementation of this program has created a debate in the medical community. In addition, many healthcare organizations and institutions have conducted research studies and surveys to evaluate the effects of the EHR on documentation of care and other aspects of the EHR. Challenges surrounding the HER include, the cost of implementing EHR’s, time spent performing documentation, and patient outcomes and safety and security concerns. Let’s further delve into a few of these challenges.

As part of the 2009 Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the Obama Administration secured $4.35 billion to encourage state-led education reforms known as the Blueprint for Reform. The Blueprint for Reform was a proposal to change the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which was first established in 1965 (Rochefort and Donnelly, 2011, p4). In 2002, President George W. Bush‘s made changes to the Act by introducing his education reform plan, No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Obama‘s Blueprint for Reform proposal involves changing NCLB as well as encourage the adoption of college and career-ready student education standards (Rochefort and Donnelly, 2011, p4). One of the educational programs of the Blueprint of Reform is the Race to the Top program.

For over 10 years, all areas of industry have been investing in informational technology (IT). IT offers faster and more proficient care especially for the healthcare industry. Health information technology (HIT) is making significant changes in how care is being delivered and addressed for patients and healthcare workers. HIT includes electronic health records (EHR), personal health records (PHI), electronic prescribing and more. The potential list is endless. HIT provides for more accurate and efficient documentation, prescriptions, and education. The Obama administration came up with an answer to help in HIT by instituting the meaningful use. This paper will discuss the overview of meaningful use, its’ core criteria, and recommendations for additional criteria.

Meaningful Use is the improvement of the way we deliver healthcare with the use HER. Several areas of patient care can be improved including how engaged the patient’s family can be in the healthcare process, better outcomes in the clinical setting and the empowerment of the patient to see more than they could in a paper chart.

Background: The Federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) identified five goals for adopting health information technology (HIT) into the current health care systems that would significantly improve healthcare in America. (Abdelhak, Grostick, & Hanken, 2012, p. 82) These goals will help improve the quality of care within the federal health system by reducing medical errors, cost, and duplication of workload.

Legislators created the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act to promote effective technology implementation among care providers. [4] In part, the act addresses privacy and security of electronic health records. The act also reinforces parts of the civil and criminal sections of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

Meaningful use may have helped the increase in implementation of healthcare information technology by providing overall the best quality and safety we can for the patients. HIT made it easier for doctors and administrators to provide better care for patients. Electronic Health Record (EHR) focused on the patient’s well-being. Also, it has helped make patients and their family engage with each other and feel comfortable with their doctor. With all these benefits we were getting from technology it became easier for society to notice how important we needed healthcare information technology. Being exposed more to it also made it easier for doctors and administrator’s to give the public what they deserve when it came to healthcare. Meaningful use

Stage 1 involves adoption and implementation of an EHR system and data gathering. In this stage hospitals must meet 11 core objectives and select 5 menu objectives for a total of 16. (CMS.gov) Many of the documentation components of Cerner® will aid in meeting the requirements of stage 1. Specific features Include:

Advances in modern technology surrounds us in our day to day lives, allowing conveniences and efficiency at our fingertips. Great strides have been made over the years with technology, and the healthcare industry along with many other industries have adopted this new way of functioning; electronically. The effects of technology have come to the forefront in where our government has acknowledged the benefits and opportunities. “The promise of Health Information Technology for improving quality and safety of health care while reducing costs has caught the eye of policy makers and other leaders in health care” (Hersh, 2006). It deeply affects how we connect, interact, and communicate internally and externally, but also gives us a sense of control on how we engage ourselves to the innovative software and systems.

Aforementioned, in 2011 The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services EHR incentive program for meaningful use was started. According to Gialanella (2015), this particular program was initiated as a direct result of a federal policy that was passed in the year of 2009, called the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act. The purpose of Meaningful Use stated Chin and Sakuda (2012) to “better the health of patients, better healthcare in general, and better the value of healthcare”. Based on the ideas of Chin and Sakuda (2012) the concept was considered as the 3Bs to be “societal, ethical, and fiscal imperatives”. With the implementation of electronic health records, CMS considered this to be as act of meaningful use of which was set to” improve and reduce the major line of demarcation in healthcare, as well as

In 2013, the HIMSS Board of Directors defined interoperability in health care as having the ability to have different information technology systems and software applications communicate, exchange date, and then use the information that has been exchanged (HIMSS, 2015). Data exchange permits data accessibility between organizational boundaries, while interoperability means health systems have the ability to work together in order to advance the health status of the individuals and communities the system serves. For two systems to be interoperable, they must be able to exchange data that can be understood by a user (HIMSS, 2015). This is extremely important to the goals of HITECH and meaningful use because it aligns with the government standard

In February of 2009, the American Reinvestment & Recovery Act (ARRA) was passed to help the nation modernize its infrastructure. The “Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act” was then passed to address the barriers to the adoption of the electronic health record by healthcare organizations (Sandefer, Marc, & Kleeburg, 2015). There are many barriers for healthcare organizations to adopt the electronic health record. These include: “substantial cost, the perceived lack of financial return from investing in them, the technical and logistic challenges involved in installing,

Meaningful use refers to the adoption of healthcare management technology referred to as the electronic-health record whose primary function is enhancing the quality, efficiency, safety, as well as reduction in health related disparities. In addition, meaningful use seeks to improve the level of care coordination, public health management and population. Undoubtedly, this aspiration encompasses the increased engagement of the patients as well their families while maintaining the safety and confidentiality of the medical information of the patient. From this backdrop, this paper shall discuss the legal, ethical and financial issues that may flow from the legislation (adoption) of meaningful use.