What do HHS' Health Information Technology Committee's requirements for meaningful use have to do with clinical documentation improvement? Besides the obvious response of "a lot", here are some more specific considerations....
Of the five categories which describe how a health care provider must be making it's use of the EHR meaningful in order to qualify for ARRA reimbursement incentives (who wouldn't want free money?), the one that may be most imperative for hospitals to consider along with clinical documentation improvement activities is the requirement to engage patients and families. In that category, the proposed rule states that healthcare entities will provide patients and their families with timely access to data, knowledge, and tools to make informed decisoins and to manage their health. One subcomponent of the rule describes providing clinical summaries to patients for each encounter. While the details of much of this will be ironed out over the next four to five years, initial roll outs begin in 2011.....not that far away!
Much of what the rule describes is close to the patient-centered care approach to CDI that has also been addressed on this blog. The bottom line is this - the clinical documentation is about the patient and for the patient, so not only does it make logical sense to include the patient approach in the CDI program, it will also help pull physicians into compliance and, help the hospital meet Meaninful Use criteria. For anyone interested in the five categories addressed in the proposed rule, they are:
1. Improve quality, safety, efficiency, and reduce health disparities
2. Engage patients and their families
3. Improve care coordination
4. Improve population and public health
5. Ensure adequate privacy and security protections for the PHR
