Officials Defend E-Health Standard As Work In Progress
Standards that define what constitutes an official electronic health record aren't strict enough to justify the billions of dollars in incentives the government plans to pay physicians and hospitals to install the systems, Republican lawmakers said Tuesday.
At a House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee hearing, officials from the Health and Human Services Department defended the recently released "meaningful use" standards, requirements and expectations that health providers must meet when applying for funding to pay for the adoption of the e-records, Nextgov.com reported.
The regulations were designed to accommodate diverse communities looking to move away from paper-based records systems, they said.
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology announced in June a temporary certification program for electronic health records programs, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued on July 13 a final rule setting standards for health care providers that want incentive payments for adopting EHR systems.
Some lawmakers expressed concern that the final rule watered down the meaningful use requirements. The regulations represent a missed opportunity to improve patient care and reduce waste because the standards are lower than expected, said Health Subcommittee ranking member Wally Herger, R-Calif. He said he expected a better return on the $36 billion investment in incentive payments to providers.
For example, lawmakers said health care providers aren't required to electronically record lab test results, nor are they asked to exchange data. They also questioned whether physicians would create electronic records only for simple cases to meet minimum use standards and ignore e-records for more vulnerable patients.
According to David Blumenthal, national coordinator for health IT, HHS will place higher demands on providers in the future. The recent standards are the first in a series of rules and apply only to incentives payments before 2013. Two additional stages for rolling out electronic records will be released, and will have stricter requirements, he said. To read more, click here.
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