Healthcare Economy: The Golden Nugget in Meaningful Use

"Meaningful Use" does not need an introduction any more. The sentiment about reporting on CMS defined Meaningful Use (MU) measures to become eligible for ARRA EHR incentives are varied across organizations. Many consider it a necessary evil leading to additional IT investments to support Meaningful Use reporting. According to a recent PwC report on MU, 80% of the provider CIOs are concerned about meeting MU reporting criteria in time for 2011 incentive payment. Lack of clarity around some of the measures adds to their woes.

In this race against time to comply with MU reporting requirements and become eligible for EHR incentives, the approach towards MU compliance tends to become short-sighted and narrowly focused. Most providers expect their EHR vendors to support MU reporting requirements and little preparatory efforts have been initiated at the organization level. For early movers, most of the activities for MU compliance have been around IT requirements to support MU. One of the biggest causes of anxiety, for larger hospitals which have multiple Healthcare Information Systems in their IT environment, is how to get all the data together from multiple systems to report on MU.

While short term tactical approach to MU may serve well to meet 2011 deadline, the biggest benefits will be reaped by those who have long term strategic approach to it. The three staged criteria for MU focused on data capture and share (Stage 1), advanced decision support (Stage 2) and improved outcomes (Stage 3) are catalysts for healthcare IT driven transformation in provider organizations. The golden nugget of 'seeding continuous high performance culture' within provider organizations is inherent in MU roadmap. It will require Healthcare Enterprise Performance Management approach towards MU and expansive planning to mine this golden nugget.

So, how is Healthcare Enterprise Performance Management approach towards MU compliance different? In broad strokes, some of the key ingredients are:
• Increased focus on end user adoption and training on healthcare IT systems
• Business process optimization and redesign to facilitate data collection/data quality management for MU
• Organization change management to promote high performance culture and clear accountability for various performance measures
• MU reporting system that not only focuses on reporting on CMS MU measures but also monitors other operational and clinical KPIs that directly or indirectly influence MU compliance
• Ability to monitor and enhance benefits realized from MU compliance

I will discuss some of these in more detail in my future blogs