HOW WE ACHIEVED MEANINGFUL USE John Crankshaw, MD

Background  Primary Care Practice in Urbana, OH  3 Family Physicians and 1 IM/Peds physician and approx 20 employees (mix of part and full time)  Practice has had our EHR since 2001  I’ve been using our EHR since 2005 and have become the IT expert/superuser for the practice.

The Run Up  Last year, kept up to date on Meaningful use criteria through the REC, our EHR vendor, and specialty societies as well as CMS.  Received certified version of our EHR in January.  Reviewed how our EHR fulfilled the different measures through our EHR’s webinars  Chose 6 Menu set measures  Decided on workflow changes  Discussed with Healthbridge our plan

The Run Up Part 2  Had 3 separate meetings with staff  Front office  Medical Assistants/Escorts  Physicians  Gave cheat sheets for each group  Outlined for the doctors the CMS criteria and how we would fulfill that criteria  Developed Forms for certain criteria – Escort Sheet and Demographic Sheet

In the Game  Went “Live” January 21 st.  Tracked progress weekly with reports from our EHR  Gave advice on how to improve weekly.  Partnered with a specialist in the community with the help of Healthbridge to fulfill Core Criteria #14 – exchange of key clinical information electronically

Attestation  Office Manager registered each Physician on the CMS website  Website walks you through each measure.  Core Requirements  Menu Requirements  Clinical Quality Measures  Need numerator/denominator numbers for each measure that requires it.  Allows for exclusions  Can log on after attesting to see status (payment, etc).

Final Tips  Prepare, prepare, prepare  Need a practice “superuser”  Understand your EHR  Understand your Workflow and what to change/tweak  Prepare your staff with meetings, cheat sheets  Give timely updates on progress  Use resources – your EHR vendor, your REC, CMS websites, etc