Meaningful Use of Healthcare Technology

Behind the bland phrase “meaningful use,” about US$36 billion is on the line: the U.S. federal government has allocated that amount as financial incentives for medical professionals and hospitals to make greater use of electronic systems and data.

Because financial incentives tend to drive real-world behavior, healthcare policymakers want to ensure that the actions healthcare providers take to qualify for the money also help them provide better healthcare. Unless regulators carefully define the practices that count as meaningful use of healthcare technology, the money could be spent on IT services that deliver the largest incentive payments but do not have a proportionate impact on healthcare.

As part of U.S. stimulus spending, the Health Information Technology for Economic Clinical Health (HITECH) Act created policy and standards committees that are defining the criteria for meaningful use and how electronic health records (EHR) systems can conform to those criteria. Other organizations, such as the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology, a nonprofit organization, will do the actual certification of specific vendor products.