Timelines were extended today to meet Meaningful Use (MU) 2 and 3 electronic health record (EHR) incentives, report two top officials from the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for Health Information Technology for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
In a post published today, Robert Tagalicod, director in the Office of E-Health Standards and Jacob Reider, MD, ONC’s acting national coordinator for health information technology, report, “Under the revised timeline, Stage 2 will be extended through 2016 and Stage 3 will begin in 2017 for those providers that have completed at least two years in Stage 2.
“The goal of this change is two-fold: first, to allow CMS and ONC to focus efforts on the successful implementation of the enhanced patient engagement, interoperability and health information exchange requirements in Stage 2; and second, to utilize data from Stage 2 participation to inform policy decisions for Stage 3.”
The phased approach, Tagalicod and Reider say, will help providers move to exchanging health information in Stage 2 and focusing on improved outcomes in Stage 3.
“This approach has allowed us to support an aggressive yet smart transition for providers,” Tagalicod and Reider say. Source
