TMG Meaningful Use
7/25/2012
Hello. My name is Kevin Toppenberg, MD. I am a primary care physician in Greeneville, TN. I have been active in the VistA community for at least 7 years, and have used VistA in my office during this time. I have decided to pursue meaningful use certification with VistA. This page will document my progress towards this, and record notes that I make to myself along the way. I hope this is helpful to others.
In CMS terminology, I am an "Eligible Provider" (EP), not a hospital. Also, I am going after Medicare (not Medicaid) certification. So my discussion below will be target accordingly.
Q: Where can I find the certification status of WorldVistA?
- Go to CMS Certified Health IT Products
- Search for "WorldVistA" -- NOTE: the search engine on this page is flaky. I found that when I clicked the search button, it would return a list of ALL technology. But when I then simply clicked search AGAIN (with WorldVistA still in the search term box), then it would find it.
Q: There seems to be so many steps to be ready to attest meaningful use. It's overwhelming. Any overview sites?
- When I looked into this a year or so ago, reading the ~80 pages of densely packed legal terms, I gave up. It seemed too daunting. But now that I am revisiting this, it seems to not be too bad at all. I found that I am already doing most of the requirements.
- I recommend starting with this overview: CMS EHR Meaningful Use Overview. The information I am posting here is from this site.
Q: What's the bottom line? What do I have to do to be ready to attest meaningful use?
- Meet "Meaningful Use Objectives" source
- Must meet 15 core measures
- Must also meet 5 of 10 possible menu set measures
- Meet "Quality Measures"
- Must meet 3 required core quality measures
- must also meet 3 of 38 possible additional quality measures
Q: Can you tell me more about the 15 core measures? They are as follows:
- CPOE -- Provider directly enters in orders source
- Implement drug-drug and drug-allergy interaction checks source
- Maintain and up-to-date problem list of current and active diagnoses source
- Generate and transmit permissible prescriptions electronically (eRx) source
- Maintain active medication list source
- Maintain active medication allergy list source
- Record required demographics source
- Record required vital signs source
- Record smoking status for patients aged 13 yrs and up source
- Report clinical quality measures to CMS source
- Implement 1 clinical decision support rule source
- Provide patients with an electronic copy of their health information source
- Provide clinical summaries for patients for each office visit (at least 50% of patients, within 3 days) source
- Perform at least 1 test of exchanging key clinical information with another entity electronically source
- Protect electronic health information source
