NR512 Week 6 Meaningful Use for Nurses Paper

NR512 Week 6 Meaningful Use for Nurses PaperNR512 Week 6 Meaningful Use for Nurses PaperMeaningful Use for Nurses For over 10 years, all areas of industry have been investing in informational technology (IT). IT offers faster and more proficient care especially for the healthcare industry. Health information technology (HIT) is making significant changes in how care is being delivered and addressed for patients and healthcare workers. HIT includes electronic health records (EHR), personal health records (PHI), electronic prescribing and more. The potential list is endless. HIT provides for more accurate and efficient documentation, prescriptions, and education. The Obama administration came up with an answer to help in HIT by instituting the meaningful use. This paper intends to discuss what meaningful use is, what the core criteria of meaningful use is and the recommendations for possible additional criteria. Overview of Meaningful Use In 2009, the Obama legislation passed American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). The ARRA is to try to improve healthcare for Americans by reducing costs and improving quality. The ARRA is commonly known as the ‘stimulus package’. The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) act was part of the ARRA to help improve our country’s infrastructure. HITECH supports electronic health records which is monitored by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC). HITECH allocated over $27 billion in funds to help encourage the healthcare industry in adopting EHRs (CDC, 2012). ‘Meaningful use is described as using a certified HER system in a ‘meaningful manner’ (such as electronic prescribing of medications) to make sure that EHR technology provides for the electronic exchange of health information to improve quality of care (CDC, 2012) Information on quality of care is submitted to the Secretary of Health & Human Services (CDC, 2012). In the beginn