Overview
EHR technology should enable a provider to deliver patients with timely access to their health information as it is logged in the EHR. The data may be accessible in an online patient portal or a personal health record (PHR).
MU Objective and Calculation
The objective is to provide patients the ability to view online, download, and transmit their health information within 4 business days of the information being available to the EP and promote the patient awareness and use of the resources.
2 Measures
More than 50 percent of all unique patients seen by the EP during the EHR reporting period are provided timely (within 4 business days after the information is available to the EP) online access to their health information subject to the EP’s discretion to withhold certain information.
At least one patient seen by the EP during the EHR reporting period (or their authorized representatives) views, downloads, or transmits his or her health information to a third party.
Denominator for calculations: Number of unique patients seen by the provider in the reporting period.
Numerator for calculations:
Measure 1: The number of patients in the denominator who have timely (within 4 business days after the information is available to the EP) online access to their health information.
Measure 2: The number of unique patients (or their authorized representatives) in the denominator who have viewed online, downloaded, or transmitted to a third party the patient’s health information.
EXCLUSIONS:
An EP neither orders nor creates any of the information listed for inclusion as part of the measures; or
An EP that conducts 50 percent or more of his or her patient encounters in a county that does not have 50 percent or more of its housing units with 4Mbps broadband availability according to the latest information available from the FCC on the first day of the EHR reporting period may exclude only the second measure.
Alternate Specifications for EPs due for Stage 1 in 2015
Alternate Exclusion: A provider due for Stage 1 in 2015 will be offered an exclusion for the second measure (in 2015 only) as there is no equivalent in Stage 1.
Meaningful Use Discussion
Providing patients electronic access to their health information helps them and their caregivers be more engaged in their care. In addition, when patients move or transfer providers they have the ability to provide their health information to their new provider(s), improving care coordination and management.
RevolutionEHR allows users to deliver patients their health information via the RevolutionPHR online portal. To grant access to the portal, the user should access the Login Information slider in the Demographic pod under the Login Access slider.
There, clicking the Edit button and then the Allow Login checkbox will create access as long as the patient has a documented email address. In the event that an email address is not available, any unique string of characters across the entire RevolutionEHR database will work as username. A temporary password can be generated by clicking the Random button to assure HIPAA qualification of protecting health information. The patient must have logged access credentials to RevolutionPHR and the provider must have signed the record within 4 days of the encounter to meet this requirement.
Access to this site can be attained via https://revolutionphr.com/. RevolutionEHR customers may deliver this address to patients or they can post this URL as a link on their practice website.
RevolutionEHR counts that a patient has been granted access to the portal as satisfying the first measure of the objective.
For a patient to count toward the utilization measure, they need to View, Download, or Transmit to a third party their health information. This can be accomplished by the patient in two places in the PHR:
The “About Me” section
The “Appointments” section
Conclusion
Meeting the access measure of the objective is expected to be a moderate challenge as the user needs to establish procedures to provide a set of RevolutionPHR login credentials for at >50% of the patients seen during the reporting period.
Meeting the “at least 1 patient” utilization measure of the objective is expected to be much easier than the previous >5% measure in Stage 2, but the intent of the reduction isn’t to make it easy as much as it is to give all providers more time to promote patient engagement before expectations are stepped up in Stage 3. Continuing to promote the value of patient information access now will be critical to Stage 3 success.