Meaningful Use with Nimbus eRelease

Electronic Health Record Release & Delivery Helping Providers Achieve Meaningful Use

What does Meaningful Use Require?

The HITECH Act offers significant financial incentives to doctors & hospitals that use EHRs to achieve a set of federally mandated requirements. This set of requirements is commonly referred to as the "Meaningful Use" criteria.

On the flip side, any providers who do not become "Meaningful Users" of EHRs, will see their Medicare reimbursement rates cut.

Several of the Meaningful Use criteria require providers to share health information with patients & other providers electronically. For example:

Provide patients with an electronic copy of their health information within 48 hours of request
Provide patients with an electronic copy of their discharge instructions and procedures at time of discharge
Provide patients with timely electronic access to their health information within 96 hours of the information being available to the eligible professional
Provide clinical summaries for patient for each office visit
Provide a summary care record for each transition of care and referral

Nimbus eRelease will enable any size provider to meet these requirements with certified technology, no matter which EHR they use. And Nimbus eRelease can meet these requirements for less than it costs to share health information by mail.

Will CDs & USB Drives meet Meaningful Use?

The general consensus today is, no, CDs & USB drives will not meet the meaningful use requirements.

CCHIT, a leading certifying body for EHR systems posted the following question & answer (see page 17):

Question: Is patient portal access mandatory, or can we simply provide the access via CD or USB drive?

Answer: Online access must be demonstrated. Providing the PHI on a USB drive or CD would not be acceptable.

In addition to not meeting the "electronic" criteria, CDs & USB drives present providers with several other potential problems:

Can it be delivered within 48 hours?
Assembling, abstracting, mailing & delivering a medical record to a patient within 48 hours via CD or USB drive is a herculean task. That would essentially mean releasing a record within 24 hours of request and then paying for overnight postage, for every patient record request.
Is it secure?
Imagine a patient walking into a doctor's office or a hospital, wanting to plug their USB drive into the provider's EHR so they could share their medical record. Computer viruses thrive on physical storage devices and can easily spread when introduced to new systems. Providers should be wary of introducing unsecured media into their systems, even if it comes from patients.
Is it efficient?
Online medical record delivery costs less than mailing medical records, and has the added benefit of automatic request invoicing and payment processing. Can the same be said for burning CDs or buying USB drives for each medical record request?

If you're ready to learn more about how Nimbus eRelease not only meets the Meaningful Use requirements, but also provides a secure and efficient release of medical record system, contact us today.

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