The Most Meaningful Use of EHR in Health Care
EHR Adoption Framework (Photo credit: andyde)
I’ve been thinking a lot about ways that Health Care and the medical system in general can be improved through the use of IT. In the United States right now, they’re over 1 year into the so-called “Meaningful Use” guidelines established by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act of 2009.
This means that thousands of doctors, clinics, hospitals and other care facilities are getting beyond the ramping up of Stage 0 & 1 into the next Stages, also called the “Meaningful Use” phase. They will no longer get any government subsidies, grants or assistance simply for basic EHR implementation or “taking old paper patient files digital”. They must now demonstrate “Meaningful Use” of the technology.
Meaningful Use – Core Requirements
BC$ = Behavior, Content, Money
The goal of the BC$ project is to raise awareness and make changes with respect to the three pillars of information freedom - Behavior (pursuit of interests and passions), Content (sharing/exchanging ideas in various formats), Money (fairness and accessibility) - bringing to light the fact that:
1. We regularly hand over our browser histories, search histories and daily online activities to companies that want our money, or, to benefit from our use of their services with lucrative ad deals or sales of personal information.
2. We create and/or consume interesting content on their services, but we aren't adequately rewarded for our creative efforts or loyalty.
3. We pay money to be connected online (and possibly also over mobile), yet we lose both time and money by allowing companies to market to us with unsolicited advertisements, irrelevant product offers and unfairly structured service pricing plans.