Impact of Meaningful Use

“Achieving meaningful use”, a statement that strikes fear in many, also leaves the questions: How do we accomplish putting everything in place to reach the mark? How is our bottom line going to be affected by the change in workflow? Is the change worth the effort? Will patient care improve? These questions, and many others, escalates dread in staff without a capable pilot navigating a well-developed implementation plan. Accomplishing Stage 1 meaningful use in my clinic was a difficult process to complete. Change, in many forms, was necessary to reach the pinnacle of achievement. This paper attempts to outline the alterations made in our clinical workflow to meet Meaningful Use Stage 1.

Front office staff began by making changes to our patient information update pages. Patients were asked to complete the form upon their first visit of the year. Demographic data supplied on the forms was then entered into the practice management system. Patients were not very understanding at first, but when an effort was made to effectively convey the necessity of such data, reception was much better. Resistance still was present from select patients, but having been equipped with the ability to enter a status of refusal into electronic health record made workflow easier.

Additionally, clinic staff recorded vitals via laptop computers as they were obtained. When the patient was roomed the medical assistant review and reconcile patient’s medication and medication allergies. Early stages were touch and go due to elderly patients not remembering medications they were taking. So in addition to calling to remind patients of their appointments, we also reminded them to bring all of their medications. Patient’s pharmacy refill records are...

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...med security assessment was performed yearly. Although many objectives were already met those remaining had to be accomplished while maintaining what was already in place. Thankfully, we have met this goal and successfully attaining Meaningful Use Stage 1. Yet, the journey was not yet over, we still needed to maintain this goal and strive for the next step Meaningful Use Stage 2. While maintaining our achievement we faced the dreaded audit by Figliozzi & Company. We had maintained all of our data that was collected during our attestation process enabling us to easily answer the audit in a timely manner. We recently received verification of our attestation in a letter from Figloiozzi & Company. Having faced the challenge of stage 1 and also the audit that followed we continue to strive for improvement in our clinic workflow allowing for superior patient care.