Meaningful Use
Last week my EMR got updated. I’m finally almost making peace with software, so they have to change it. They tell me that they are getting rid of some bugs and updating so I can meet “meaningful use criteria”.
The gobment has criteria that they want every chart to cover in order to meet their criteria for “meaningful use” of the EMR. So far I have discovered some of them.
1. They want me to ask every one of my patients if she smokes, how much, and for how long. I’m not sure what that has to do with a yeast infection, but…..
2. Every patient is to have a height and weight, so we can determine a BMI. This stands for body mass index. The gobment wants to know if you are fat.
3. They have not fixed the ranges for height. A woman under 5’ or over 5’10” is out of range for the EMR.
4. I must give a certain number of my patients written educational materials and document this. If I don’t meet their %, I don’t get Medicare incentive money. Since I don’t participate with Medicare, I don’t care about this.
5. I must give a certain percentage of my patients written instructions and document this. Same issue as #4.
There is no place for
1. Did you explain to the patient what is wrong with them?
2. Did you answer all the patient’s questions?
3. I have a GYN practice. Every patient is female. One statistic I really need is when a woman had her last period. There is NO place for this. My pediatrics, family practice and several other specialty friends say that this is important to them, also.
They did build in some sort of medication sheet that will follow which medications are prescribed by date. This is encouraging. Now, if I could only figure out how to get the sheet that I have been keeping since 1995 loaded into the computer…. (Oh, computer geeks, where are you?)
Meaningful use is hard to do when you are an old fart.
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