Electronic health record – Page 3 – RISC Management and Consulting

An Eligible Provider (EP) must attest to all 15 Core Measures of the Meaningful Use Stage 1 requirements in order to qualify for stimulus money. Core Measure #15 requires that Providers complete a series of activities, both initial and follow-on. It is important to note that there is no exclusion from Core Measure #15, that is, it is not an optional or excludable component of the attestation. Eligible professionals (EPs) must attest Yes to having conducted or reviewed a risk analysis in accordance with the requirements under 45 CFR 164.308(a)(1) and implemented security updates as necessary and corrected identified security deficiencies prior to or during the EHR reporting period to meet this measure. It is worth noting that Stage 2’s proposed requirements continue to reinforce the importance of Privacy and Security. All providers must achieve meaningful use under the Stage 1 criteria before moving to Stage 2.

RISC Management and Consulting can assist organizations, including medical practices and hospitals alike in performing a risk analysis, understanding the results, determining appropriate remediation steps, and managing security functions on an ongoing basis. RISC was founded by individuals with an extensive healthcare background so we understand your business and the unique challenges it presents!

There is serious risk in attesting to meeting every requirement for Core Measure #15 if you haven’t taken the process seriously. However, with some work and help from the professionals at RISC, you can meet or exceed every requirement for Meaningful Use and help your practice run safer and smoother!

This information provided by RISC Management and Consulting, http://www.RISCsecurity.com

Many healthcare providers have said goodbye to HITECH’s meaningful use stage 1 to pursue the stage 2 requirements. However, the future is not a stranger to its predecessor, requiring a better realization of concepts and metrics of many standards in stage 1.

Stage 1 was the beginning of HITECH’s transformative approach to health care, requiring movement to electronic health records (EHRs) and more efficient transmission and use of the EHRs, which is proving to be beneficial to patients and their care as evidenced by the ease of e-prescribing. To ensure continuous progress of realizing the vision of greater health information effectiveness, care providers must continue to raise the bar and push for increasing processes such as e-prescribing and introducing processes that share care information with other relative providers while still maintaining the privacy and security standards for patient information.

This stage also solidifies new requirements such as bringing patient health records to the world of internet accessibility and giving the patients greater insight into their own health information. This increases the potential risks for the providers despite the convenience and usefulness of the program as a whole. Incurring this additional risk will require organizations to perform additional risk analysis to stay in front of the threats and ensure that best practices are followed while encrypting information in storage and transit as well as working with clients to raise awareness of information security.

Stage 2 will bring a new planning phase, but also a new cycle in the life of what should be a living process. If you are struggling to optimize your process, let RISC Management help you maximize the potential of meaningful use stage 1 while developing a secure plan and foundation for the new requirements in stage 2.