Electronic Health Record Incentive Program (“Meaningful Use”)

The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) provides financial incentives to encourage the use of electronic health records (EHR). The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) are implementing incentive programs for eligible health care professionals, eligible hospitals and critical access hospitals to adopt, implement or demonstrate meaningful use (MU) of certified EHR technology. Included in the strategies for demonstrating “meaningful use” of the EHR systems are three objectives related to public health: submission of immunization registry data, submission of syndromic surveillance data and submission of reportable laboratory reports. Hospitals and eligible providers are required to meet at least one of the public health-related meaningful use objectives during Stage 1 to qualify for EHR incentive payments.

Georgia Department of Public Health (GDPH) is interested in working with eligible professionals, eligible hospitals, and Critical Access Hospitals on all the public-health related meaningful use objectives. GDPH is currently able to receive electronic submissions of the three public health-related objectives for the purpose of Meaningful Use Attestation.

How to Proceed

Step 1:
Please follow the link below to register your interest in beginning the attestation process.

http://phip.ga.gov/mureg.htm

Step 2:
Follow the links below to obtain additional guidance, messaging specifications, and contact information specific to each public health meaningful use objective

• Background on CMS EHR Incentive Program
• Syndromic Surveillance
• Reportable Laboratory Results
• Immunization Data

Step 3:
Coordinate with GDPH to schedule implementation and testing. GDPH will issue a certificate of test completion to acknowledge success in meeting the MU public health objectives.