Efficient Medical Data Reporting for Meaningful Use

The most important aspect of Meaningful Use is accurate data; therefore medical practice administrators must have efficient reporting processes established when it is time to submit for Meaningful Use. The end of the 2nd reporting quarter, for those who are in their second year of participation, is June 30th, 2014. If your practice has not yet started, 2014 is that last year for eligible professionals to start the participation process. To access additional information, you can check this HealthIT link. 

Developing consistent medical practice data collection procedures results in not only greater efficiency of medical administration tasks, but ultimately more successful results from Meaningful Use reporting experiences.

Information that can or must be included in your regular data collection processes link back to the 15 core objectives.  Key aspects of data collection functionality should include :

• Filtering patient data and reports according to specific conditions. This list can include subheadings for cancer patients to be reported to registries, unless prohibited.
• Tracking all patient immunizations.
• Incorporating a clinical lab-test result within your EHR as part of the Menu Objectives.
• Recording all current and active diagnoses seen by physicians, PA’s, RN’s and others in your practice.
• Incorporating protocols for information sharing with other physicians and medical care providers while maintaining privacy and security.
• Establishing the capability to electronically submit syndromic surveillance data (for preventing possible disease outbreaks) to public health agencies. This must be done according the laws that apply.

Medical practices and individual physicians must have an efficient means of setting up and collecting data, and gathering the correct forms and the other information needed to effectively implement reporting protocols for reporting Meaningful Use. If you have recently started, or just beginning to implement processes, be sure you have a clear understanding of the reporting requirements and efficient data collection processes to accomplish your goals.