The purpose of this video is just to remind you to submit whatever comments you want to submit to Health and Human Services regarding Meaningful Use 2 and their proposal to reduce the requirements from 5 percent of the records of a typical health care organization being accessible to just one record. Whether you’re for it or against it it’s critical that we respond to this issue.

So the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid drafted new regulations regarding a roll back up the data sharing rules regarding Meaningful Use 2. They want to roll back from the prior requirements that a provider must show that five percent of its patients actually did view or download their data or transmit it to another doctor, to the new draft which states that they would just have to show that one patient has done this and they would then be entitled to full federal reimbursement. So in the following slides we show you where you can go into the Federal Register and click on the area where you can make your formal comments. You can click to see all the documents and the comments in the docket as well.

My recommendation is that the proposed rule is entirely unacceptable. Proving that one medical record is accessible does not verify the capacity, competencies, or safeguards necessary to serve a patient population. As one who understands the barriers for digital innovation adoption, I request that CMS consider creating a performance test like the National Quality Forum Safe Practice 16: Safe Adoption of Computerized Prescriber Order Entry which has been tested with over 700 hospitals through the Leapfrog Group over 5 years. Such a post deployment test would provide learning and verification of performance.

It’s my position that all of us need to respond to the meaningful use 2 proposed change however we want to respond so that they can really hear from the front line and hear from those of us that are knowledgeable about these technologies and how important these technologies are to patient care.

So with your pro or con on this issue it’s absolutely critical that the government hear from us. Accessibility and availability to a patient’s medical records is absolutely critical. It drives patient safety, it drives performance, it reduces cost, and it could help the entire national community. So we really hope that you respond to this issue, and we hope that you ask the government to come up with a solution that will actually drive faster adoption have safe use digital records.