Stage 3

Stage 3 of the CMS EHR Incentive Program is scheduled to begin in 2017

Auto bumpers and HealthIT Interoperability

Ralph Nadar's book Unsafe At Any Speed raised public awareness of some of the safety problems associated with the Chevrolet Corvair.  Nadar’s book, however, was also an indictment of the auto industry as a whole and served as a lightning rod for legislation establishing what would eventually become the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA). 

These two industries, HealthIT and automobiles have quite a lot in common including that they are both highly regulated.  These regulations exist because in both industries poor design can lead to safety issues and the possible death of their user’s.

ONC Final Rule for 2015 Certification Criteria: Safety-enhanced design

The final rule for the ONC 2015 certification has been released.

The 550+ page document identifies a number of changes from the previously published proposed rule in direct response to a number of comments provided to ONC.

Crash test dummies and The Usability of Electronic Health Records

The big business interests of the Healthcare industry cried wolf (and lobbied hard)

against the meaningful use (now called “Promoting Interoperability”) program and enhancements to the usability requirements. Perhaps because they don’t want to spend the extra time and money to provide a healthcare system that truly follows a safety-enhanced design philosophy.

Personalization of Patient Portals : a way to achieve engagement and true meaningful use

In the proposed rule for Meaningful Use Stage 3 the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) has made significant changes to the patient engagement recommendations that are causing controversy amongst EHR vendors, Doctors, and the media. These recommendations include three measures of engagement, and providers would have to report on all three of them, but successfully meet thresholds on only two.

Some claim that these requirements are too burdensome, and that they may not be achievable giving what is achievable in the marketplace today.

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