The American Recovery And Reinvestment Act

In today’s society, the accuracy of health information, the availability of health records, and the professional resources in which one live are vital in decision making for health conditions. Meaningful Use (MU) is a program developed by CMS Medicare and Medicaid that awards, incentives in the health care industry in which the certified electronic health records (EHRs) are used to improve patient care (Practice Fusion, 2016). These incentives are for professionals that care for about 30% of their adult patient volume or 20% of their children’s volume for Medicare and Medicaid patients (CMS, 2016). In addition, adjusting from paper charts to electronic charts of patient’s information is beneficial for MU. Furthermore, the American

In 2009 The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) allocated approximately $19 billion to support physicians and hospitals in attaining meaningful use of health information technology (HIT). The meaningful use program is intended to facilitate providers to amass

In 2008, the American economy broke down. Known as the Global Financial Crisis, this is widely considered to be the worst financial crisis since the 1930’s when the stock market crashed and the Great Depression hit.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 identified three main components of meaningful use: the use of a certified EHR in a meaningful manner, electronic exchange of health information to improve quality of care, and the use of technology to submit clinical outcomes and quality measures (Heath Resources and Service Administration, n.d.). ARRA includes many measures to modernize our nation’s infrastructure, with the “Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act” being an example. The HITECH Act is an effort led by Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services (CMS) in support of electronic health records and meaningful use (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC 2016). According to Galbraith (2013), the HITECH Act aims to promote the use of EHRs by providing over $27 billion in monetary incentives for health care providers that become “meaningful users”. CMS uses these core objectives to determine if a health care provider has satisfied meaningful use and is eligible to receive financial incentives (Galbraith, 2013).

The Affordable Care Act of 2010 marks a new era in American health care. Yet in many ways, this era began more than a year earlier, with the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 and its Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) provisions. Although HITECH may be viewed narrowly as legislation to

In 2009, more than $30 billion dollars in incentives was allocated by congress for hospitals to institute meaningful use of electronic health records (EHRs) by 2011 (Adler-Milstein, Bates, & Jha, 2011) (Murphy, 2010). The Meaningful Use Act is a complicated principle that is part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) as well as the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) act.

HITECH act is part of the ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment) Act of 2009 designed to promote the adoption of Health information Technology (HIT) and meaningful use of the HIT. The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and CMS have spent more than 25.9 billion under the HITECH act to create the HIT infrastructure and a nationwide network for Electronic Health Records (EHR). According to Washington Post, as much 36.5 billion has been spent toward incentives and EHR infrastructure.

Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on February 17, 2009. President Obama signed the act into law four days later. The law directed about $150 billion in new funds to the healthcare industry. It included $87 million for Medicaid, $24.7 billion to subsidize private health insurance for people who lose or have lost their jobs, $19.2 billion for health information technology, and $10 billion for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The act also provided $650 million to support preventive medicine and wellness activities targeting health issues such as; obesity, smoking, and other risk factors for chronic diseases as well as $500 million for health professions training programs. This legislation has helped stimulate the

People believe the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act or ARRA had a centralizing effect, yet there are motives that support, as well as some that oppose the act. The act is sometimes referred to as The Stimulus or The Recovery Act. The United States Congress in February of 2009 passed this Act and it was signed in the same month, by President Barack Obama.

The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), is legislation aimed at the adoption and “meaningful use” of health information technology. CMS was authorized to establish incentive programs for eligible Medicare and Medicaid providers who adopt, implement, upgrade, or “meaningfully use” certified electronic health records (EHR). The term “meaningful use” is an acknowledgement that improved health care is not the product of technology but a method to exchange and use health information to support clinical decisions at the point of care.

In 2008, the housing market crashed, businesses were failing, and people were losing their jobs. This is how Barack Obama started off his presidency. Already, fingers were being pointed and cries were maybe. This would be the start off to Obama’s presidency. His creation of the Stimulus Package created a lot of criticism, but at the end of the day, it fixed the economy. Now Obama is ending his presidency with a flourishing economy and GDP Growth. Even if the Stimulus Package was one of the most criticized plans in his presidency, it did exactly what it was meant for, which was to fix the economy and create growth.

The ARRA includes the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, which pursues to improve American Healthcare and patient care through an extraordinary investment in Healthcare IT (HIT). The requirements of the HITECH Act are precisely designed to work jointly to provide the necessary assistance and technical operation to providers, enable grammatical relation and organization within and among states, establish connectivity in case of emergencies, and see to it the workforce is properly trained and equipped to be meaningful users of certified Electronic Health Records (EHRs). These computer software products are designed collaboratively to intensify the footing for every American to profit from an electronic health record (EHR) as part of a modernized, interrelated, and vastly improved grouping of care delivery.

The goal in healthcare today is to achieve better patient outcomes. Technology is changing daily that affects how patient care is provided. As the world around us continues to move into a more advanced technology based healthcare system incentives are offered to qualifying healthcare entities, provided they are utilizing approved health information technology (IT) to comply with standards set by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) (Jones, Rudin, Perry, & Shekelle, 2014). Standards such as meaningful use help ensure with the use of electronic health records (EHR) that patients are receiving quality care (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], n.d.). This paper will define and discuss the importance and implications of meaningful use relating to healthcare. Several key points will be discussed including an overview of meaningful use, analysis, further recommendations and a conclusion.

In 2009, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act passed as a result of President Obama signing into law the American Recovery and Investment Act (ARRA) (Wallace, Zimmer, Possanza, Giannini, & Solomon, 2013). Not to be confused with the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Civic impulse, 2004), the ARRA was an economic stimulus package that appropriated nearly seven hundred eighty seven billion dollars to create jobs, restore economic growth, and strengthen America’s ecosystem (Herring & Schaffer, 2011). A significant portion of the budget was allocated for healthcare reform, specifically as it related to health information technology. Physicians and hospitals were incentivized to

The use of health information technology has evolved over the years to become an integral part of the patient care. Note to mention that technology in healthcare initially was driven by hospital shared accounting system, then, it changes to drugs and reimbursement program. The system has expanded to the point that at the corner of 21 century, health technology is different from what it was before. Meanwhile, complementary technologies integrate the system. It started with electronic medical record (EMR) and progresses to electronic health record (HER) or e-health that involves the use of computer and other computer-based devices to collect, store, and retrieve data that are in turn transformed into information for meaningful use; thus, the term of health information technology (HIT). In attempt to forecast meaningful use of health information technology, it is possible to list other emerging health information technology devices, such as mobile health (m-health) and ubiquitous health (u-health) that will not be part of the discussion in this paper. For the record, meaningful use of electronic health record is based on care outcome reimbursement, whereas any clinical decisions should aim to support quality care at a low cost. Thus, providers, nurses, and other health disciplinary team should aim their daily practice towards the pillars of care outcomes that are the attributes of meaningful use. For this