Meaningful use

The American Reinvestment & Recovery Act of 2009 includes many measures to modernize our nation's infrastructure, one of which is the "Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act." The HITECH Act supports the concept of meaningful use of electronic health records.

The Stage 2 measures for public health reporting state that an Eligible Hospital (EH) or Eligible Provider (EP) must register intent to submit ongoing submission of electronic data to the Public Health Authority (PHA) for the following types of reporting:

• Immunization Registries
• Syndromic Surveillance
• Reportable Lab Results
• Cancer Registries
• Specialized Registries

The EH or EP must register with the PHA within 60 days of the start of the organization’s EHR reporting period, if they plan on attesting for such public health reporting for that period. Once registered, the EH or EP is immediately considered to be engaged in ongoing submission to the PHA. However, to remain engaged in ongoing submission the EH or EP must do the following:

• Be ready to participate in the on-boarding process when the PHA is ready to engage.
• Respond to any PHA written requests for actions. Note: The EH or EP does not meet the measure if there is a failure to respond to two written requests within 30 days on two separate occasions.

For more information about meaningful use, visit http://go.usa.gov/DHhC. For Maine CDC’s Meaningful Use Stage 2 Registration page, go to http://go.usa.gov/DHS4.