Some healthcare providers who are considering adopting electronic health records in order to become eligible for the government's incentive program have expressed concern that the meaningful use rules they must follow to receive payments are too stringent.
Government officials have heard these complaints and are leading efforts to solve the perceived problems. The Agency for Health Research and Quality recently announced that it will survey eligible providers about the hurdles that may lie between them and meaningful use of electronic health records.
The survey will focus mainly on community and rural health centers, which may face greater hurdles to becoming meaningful users and generally serve greater numbers of Medicaid patients.
The agency plans to take the information they gather through the survey to develop technical assistance programs to help providers more rapidly transition to fully electronic systems.
The information will also be given to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT. This will help officials develop stages 2 and 3 of meaningful use, which are currently in development. Officials expect the second stage of meaningful use to be implemented by 2012.