Health care IT is being driven through policies and reimbursement incentives such as the Meaningful Use
initiative. Discuss the impact of meaningful use criterion on Medicare and Medicaid hospital and hospital
provider reimbursement using 2-3 EBP research article to support your answers.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Priorities
Partnership, there are five initiatives, or criteria that need to be met to fulfill the Meaningful
Use initiative: “1. Improve quality, safety, and efficiencies, and reduce health disparities. 2.
Engage patients and families. 3. Improve care coordination. 4. Improve population and public
health. 5. Ensure adequate privacy and security protections for personal health information
(Nelson & Staggers, 2018, p.461). With the focus on electronic health records, or EHRs, in
healthcare, the Meaningful Use initiative is pushing ITs to create a better system that the
patients and professionals can and will use. If used correctly and efficiently on both parties,
hospitals and hospital providers can be reimbursed by the state or federal government. These
reimbursements help motivate the hospitals to create a more user-friendly system for both the
providers and patients. The other motivating factor is if the hospital or hospital provider is non-
compliant to the meaningful use initiative, there are penalties to both the facility and the
provider (Kwon & Johnson, 2018).
For patients, one of the main factors for Meaningful Use to be effective is a form of
communication, which is trying to be promoted via internet, where the EHR portals are located.
Not all patients, especially most patients that have Medicare (which is mostly for retired
citizens), are educated and fluent with the internet, which could cause a barrier with
Meaningful Use. According to a study done at the University of Nebraska, Omaha, Dr. Martina
Clarke and her colleagues (2020) found that based on three different age groups (young adult,
middle-age adult, and seniors), that seniors would rather have a phone conversation with their
doctor than use a smart phone and the internet to communicate with them. This barrier could
cause issues with the Meaningful Use initiative when it comes to EHRs. In order for more
patients to use the EHRs, they need to be taught how to use it and the EHR portals have to be
use friendly based on the age group.
One impact that seems to be immensely positive for the Meaningful Use initiative is the
certified hospitals are not having racial disparities. Dr. Mark Unruh and his colleagues from Weill
Cornell Medical College (2018), performed a retrospective cohort study by using statistics based
on MU-compliant hospital stays of Medicare beneficiaries from the states of Washington, New
York, and Florida to determine whether there was a racial disparity between the facilities.
According to the statistics the research team studied from 2009-2013, there was no racial
disparity at any of the MU-compliant hospitals and facilities. This means no matter who the
patients were, the hospitals and their providers were fulfilling the criterion to stay Meaningful
Use compliant.
Overall, the Meaningful Use initiative seems to have a positive impact to patient care,
patient access, and to hospitals and providers when compliant. This helps promote a more
wide-spread use of EHRs so all patients can feel comfortable accessing it and using it. It also
promotes better quality care for the patients, no matter who they are. If used properly, the
Meaningful Use initiative will promote better healthcare.
References
Clarke, M., Fruhling, A., Sitorius, M., Windle, T., Bernard, T., & Windle, J. (2020). Impact of age
on patients’ communication and technology preferences in the era of meaningful use:
Mixed methods study. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 22(6).
Kwon, J., & Johnson, M. E. (2018). Meaningful healthcare security: Does “meaningful-use”
attestation improve information security performance? MIS Quarterly.
Nelson, R., & Staggers, N. (2018). Health informatics an interprofessional approach. St. Louis,
MO: Elsevier.
Unruh, M., Jung, H.-Y., Kaushal, R., & Vest, J. (2018). Hospital participation in meaningful use
and racial disparities in readmissions. Am J Manag Care, 24(1), 38–42.
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