Eligible Professionals: Stage 1 Meaningful Use Overview

To achieve Stage 1 Meaningful Use, eligible professionals (EPs) must successfully attest to meaningful use measures as well as the calculation of patient-related data.

EPs are required to achieve Stage 1 Meaningful Use in the two payment years following the adoption, implementation, or upgrading (AIU) of certified EHR technology. For an EP's first year achieving meaningful use, or Payment Year 2 following AIU in Payment Year 1, meaningful use is reported for any 90 consecutive days in the calendar year. The second year of meaningful use reporting requires that the full calendar year serve as the reporting period.

Stage 1 Meaningful Use Criteria for Eligible Professionals

Core Measures

EPs must attest to each of the 13 core measures, though exclusions can be claimed on certain measures.

• Click to Expand the List of Core Objectives for EP

  1. Use CPOE for medication orders directly entered by any licensed healthcare professional who can enter orders into the medical record per state, local and professional guidelines.
  2. Implement drug-drug and drug-allergy interaction checks.
  3. Maintain an up-to-date problem list of current and active diagnoses.
  4. Generate and transmit permissible prescriptions electronically (eRx).
  5. Maintain active medication list.
  6. Maintain active medication allergy list.
  7. Record all of the following demographics:
     
     1. Preferred language.
     2. Gender.
     3. Race.
     4. Ethnicity.
     5. Date of birth.
  8. Record and chart changes in the following vital signs:
     1. Height.
     2. Weight.
     3. Blood pressure.
     4. Calculate and display body mass index (BMI).
     5. Plot and display growth charts for children 2–20 years, including BMI.
  9. Record smoking for patients 13 years old or older.
  10. Implement one clinical decision support rule relevant to specialty or high clinical priority along with the ability to track compliance with that rule.
  11. Provide patients with an electronic copy of their health information (including diagnostics test results, problem list, medication lists, medication allergies) upon request.
  12. Provide clinical summaries for patients for each office visit.
  13. Protect electronic health information created or maintained by the certified EHR technology through the implementation of appropriate technical capabilities.

Menu Measures

EPs must choose five of the ten menu measures, including one public health measure. As syndromic surveillance cannot be submitted by eligible professionals in Arizona at this time, the immunization registry is the appropriate public health option unless a professional qualifies for an exclusion.

For more information about Arizona Immunization Registry, please visit the websites below:

Arizona Immunization Registry - ASIIS EHR Interoperability Home Page

Arizona Immunization Registry and Meaningful Use FAQs

• Click to Expand the List of Menu Objectives for EP

  1. Implement drug formulary checks.
  2. Incorporate clinical lab-test results into EHR as structured data.
  3. Generate lists of patients by specific conditions to use for quality improvement, reduction of disparities, research, or outreach.
  4. Send patient reminders per patient preference for preventive/follow-up care.
  5. Provide patients with timely electronic access to their health information (including lab results, problem list, medication lists, and allergies) within 4 business days of the information being available to the EP.
  6. Use certified EHR technology to identify patient-specific education resources and provide those resources to the patient if appropriate.
  7. The EP who receives a patient from another setting of care or provider of care or believes an encounter is relevant should perform medication reconciliation.
  8. The EP who transitions their patient to another setting of care or provider of care or refers their patient to another provider of care should provide summary care record for each transition of care or referral.
  9. Capability to submit electronic data to immunization registries or immunization information systems and actual submission according to applicable law and practice.
  10. Capability to submit electronic syndromic surveillance data to public health agencies and actual submission according to applicable law and practice.

Please refer to Stage 1 EHR Meaningful Use Specification Sheets for Eligible Professionals regarding Core Measure and Menu Measure details from the CMS website.

Clinical Quality Measures

Eligible professionals must report on 6 total clinical quality measures: 3 required core measures (substituting alternate core measures where necessary) and 3 additional measures (selected from a set of 38 clinical quality measures).

Please refer to 2011/2012 Eligible Professional Reporting Measures Table [PDF 380 KB] from CMS website for a complete list of Clinical Quality Measures for EP.