AMA Webinar: Stimulus 101

During my lunch break today, I attended the live AMA (American Medical Association) webinar titled, "Stimulus 101: Basics of the Health Information Technology Provisions"

The presenters were:

• Glen Tullman, CEO, Allscripts
• Margaret Garikes, Director of Federal Affairs, AMA

And the webinar was described as:

• Understand the HIT provisions in the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009" (ARRA) and receive the latest update on the HIT Policy and Standards Committees.

If I could summarize several key points that struck out to me, they would be:

1. We're still all waiting for the definition of "meaningful use." (what a surprise, right?)
   
2. An EHR (electronic health record) system that is not currently CCHIT certified is unlikely to qualify under ARRA.
   
3. If you're currently using a non-CCHIT certified EHR, contact your vendor to evaluate whether they plan to update (or completely rebuild) their system to qualify.
   
4. People are confused about whether the Medicare/Medicaid PQRI (Physician Quality Reporting Initiative) measures and e-prescribing incentives are related to the incentives described in the ARRA. (right now, they appear to be completely separate initiatives)

Care to listen to the archived webinar? Click here.