As hospitals gear up to meet Stage 1 of the meaningful use requirements under the federal government's electronic health record incentives program, a new report concludes that EHRs will only be able to provide about a third of the data requirements for Stage 1 quality measures outlined in the final rule. Not only is time working against putting in place the necessary technology to meet the requirements for computerized physician order entry, problem list, and so forth, but the quality reporting requirement adds to the duties. In short, hospitals, doctors, and other clinicians have their work cut out for them. "Much attention has been paid to some of the explicit data capture requirements for meaningful use -- computerized physician order entry in particular -- because so much work lies ahead for most U.S. hospitals to implement these functions. However, we believe that the quality reporting requirements for Stage 1, the first increment of meaningful use to be achieved, will be equally challenging," A new CSC report concludes.
