Meaningful Use

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The Meaningful Use program was introduced by the U.S. government as part of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, encouraging health care providers to implement and demonstrate Meaningful Use (MU) of certified Electronic Health Records (EHR).  The HITECH Act, enacted as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, was signed into law by the federal government on February 17, 2009. Under HITECH, eligible health care professionals and hospitals can qualify for Medicare and Medicaid incentive payments when they adopt certified EHR technology (CEHRT) and use it to achieve specific objectives.

 

Meaningful Use is the set of standards defined by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Incentive Programs that governs the use of electronic health records and compliance with the program. The goal of Meaningful Use is to promote the spread of electronic health records to improve health care in the United States.

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Promoting Interoperability Program

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CMS is dedicated to improving interoperability and patients’ access to health information. To better reflect this focus, CMS renamed the EHR Incentive Programs to the Promoting Interoperability (PI) Programs. 

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CMS continued its focus on the advancement of certified electronic health record technology (CEHRT) utilization, burden reduction, and improving interoperability and patient access to health information for the Medicare Promoting Interoperability Program for eligible hospitals and critical access hospital (CAHs).

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Participants attesting to the Medicare Promoting Interoperability Program will be required to use CEHRT that has been updated to meet 2015 Edition Cures Update criteria.

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*Medicare EPs will attest to the PI performance category (formerly Advancing Care Information) under MIPS.