To achieve “Meaningful Use”: Begin with the end in mind!

To achieve “Meaningful Use”:  Begin with the end in mind!

The past several months have been energizing as healthcare organizations and companies get clear on the promise of improving (dare I say “transforming”?) the US healthcare system with health information technology (HIT) via ARRA funding for meeting “Meaningful Use” criteria.  Here at Elsevier I have the privilege of leading and collaborating with a team of experts on clinical decision support (CDS) who are committed to supporting our customers and HIT vendor partners with value-added products and services to successfully achieve “meaningful use” of their HIT investments.

What do you see when you study the most recently approved HIT Policy Committee’s recommendations for “Meaningful Use” (Meaningful Use Matrix)?

The most logical way to approach this for meeting the ultimate goal as well as achieve funding across the spectrum is to follow that old Stephen Covey leadership principle…. “Begin with the end in mind”.

The end is all about Clinical Outcomes, Efficient Care, Safe Care, Patient/Family Engagement, Clinical Summaries, Care Coordination, Population Management, and Surveillance Measures.

These outcomes call for the marriage of HIT and advanced CDS supporting evidence-based practice as key enablers for every healthcare profession to utilize in their daily practices at the point of care.  They call us to think critically and in new ways about the goals and measurements of each meaningful use criteria to achieve the end in mind!

Stay tuned for deeper exploration of key considerations and successful steps meeting the latest HIT Policy and Standards Committees efforts to achieve true “Meaningful Use”.