"From a physician standpoint, it's about what to do to qualify for federal incentive money," says Peter Beck, a physician and a medical IT consultant. "There's also quite a bit of discussion right now about whether or not there will actually be incentive money."

Joseph Castranova, president of Florida-based MD Billings, agrees that many physicians are concerned that the money won't be coming and are not interested in making changes.


"From a vendor standpoint, it's also similar in terms of making sure the EMR products being offered will meet certain criteria to be eligible and most of the large vendors are staying on top of that to make sure their product qualifies," Beck adds. "The perennial buzz is how is it we can have as much interoperability as possible-having different systems talking to one another."

According to Launders, while a precise definition of "meaningful use" has not yet been released, it will require widespread use of the EHR system throughout the organization, with the capability of exchanging data with outside entities, such as a physician's practice. Hospitals that do not implement an EHR within the designated timeline will receive penalties until they are in compliance.

Defining Meaningful Use

As 2010 began, there was a great deal of activity going on in defining what "meaningful use" means.

"Right now the biggest question is regarding what the final criteria will be for meaningful use and who will be the certifying bodies and how that is going to play out," says Pierre Finn, VP of operations and business development for Imogen Systems. "People want to know, 'Will the standards carry over enough and what will be approved?'"

The Department of Health and Human Services released their "almost final" definition at the end of 2009 with the proposed Stage 1 criteria focusing on electronically capturing health information in a coded format, using that information to track key clinical conditions, communicating that information for care coordination purposes and initiating the reporting of clinical quality measures and public health information.

"Their findings let us know what physicians are expected to be doing over a five-year time frame to purchase, adopt and use EHRs and have their information reported," says Keith Belton, senior director of product marketing for Nuance. "There's a 60-day comment period going on now, where everyone from the AMA to [other health care professionals and organizations] are weighing in on what's good or not good about these findings."

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