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The United States is moving towards complete digitization of medical records and these proposed regs, recently issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), create financial incentives for health care workers to make “meaningful use” of electronic health records in order to move the ball forward:
“Widespread adoption of electronic health records holds great promise for improving health care quality, efficiency, and patient safety,” said, National Coordinator for Health Information Technology David Blumenthal, M.D., M.P.P. “The Recovery Act’s financial incentives demonstrate Congress’ and the Administration’s commitment to help providers adopt and make meaningful use of EHR technology so they can give better care and their patients’ experience of care will improve. Over time, we believe the EHR incentive program under Medicare and Medicaid will accelerate and facilitate health information technology adoption by more individual providers and organizations throughout the health care system.”
