From CMS
http://www.cms.gov/Regulations.....age_2.html
Patient Electronic Access is defined as:
Measure 1:
More than 50 percent of all unique patients seen by the EP during the EHR reporting period are provided timely (available to the patient within 4 business days after the information is available to the EP) online access to their health information.
Measure 2:
More than 5 percent of all unique patients seen by the EP during the EHR reporting period (or their authorized representatives) view, download, or transmit to a third party their health information.
Questions
Measure 1: Does this mean 50% must be signed up for the portal or that the data for 50% of patients be sent to the portal? That is a big difference since many patients may not want to sign up for the portal.
Measure 2: Seems simple but the wording that if a patient comes in many times, count the patient once. Then see if 5% of all unique patients 'did something' with the portal. Thus, only need to verify that a logon happened for 5%?
Thanks.
joeg1962 said:
From CMS
http://www.cms.gov/Regulations.....age_2.html
Patient Electronic Access is defined as:
Measure 1:
More than 50 percent of all unique patients seen by the EP during the EHR reporting period are provided timely (available to the patient within 4 business days after the information is available to the EP) online access to their health information.
Measure 2:
More than 5 percent of all unique patients seen by the EP during the EHR reporting period (or their authorized representatives) view, download, or transmit to a third party their health information.
Questions
Measure 1: Does this mean 50% must be signed up for the portal or that the data for 50% of patients be sent to the portal? That is a big difference since many patients may not want to sign up for the portal.
Measure 2: Seems simple but the wording that if a patient comes in many times, count the patient once. Then see if 5% of all unique patients 'did something' with the portal. Thus, only need to verify that a logon happened for 5%?
Thanks.
Measure 1: I think for measure 1 it means that we have an email address on file for the patient and the portal sent them a welcome message as a result of the email field in CPS being populated, and a visit has occurred which triggers a portal email.
Measure 2: I agree with your understanding and I think that is what we are using.
I would love to hear from others here to see what kind of incentives you all have been employing to get more people to sign up and use the portal. Sometimes I am hearing that patients refuse to give an email address, likely because it wasn't 'sold' to them properly. If you make it seem mandatory like a phone number people are more likely to give it up. The percentage required numbers are low (for now) and we will probably need to get creative to bring those percentages up as necessary.
Mike Zavolas
Tallahassee Neurological Clinic
Actually, as I investigate this more, I came upon the following definition on the CMS website. And because the definition uses the word 'or', that seems to mean any of the following are acceptable. Thus, if you could show that 50% of the patients were given a handout for the website to sign-up and initial username (if the website does not generate), wouldn't that meet the criteria?
I know many are struggling with how to capture email addresses for 50% and show that the initial password was generated. But, this definition seems to say that there are other ways to show the 50% threshold.
In the Stage 2 GE (Oracle, not CPS) world...
50% = PIN, like as it did on Stage 1, not emails.
From our audits, the "any of the following" approach hasn't been much of an option -- auditors ask for reports clearly identified as having come from the vendor's system.
Percentage of all unique patients seen by the EP before, during, or after the
EHR reporting period who are provided timely (available to the patient within 4
business days after the information is available to the EP) online access to
their health information subject to the EP’s discretion to withhold certain
information.
When the patient chart is updated and signed, and PATPORTALPIN is on the
update, the MUActivityLog will record that portal access was provided.
Beginning with this version, the MUActivityLog database table records event details needed for numerator or denominator calculations. Meaningful Use calculation events cannot be disabled. You can choose to enable or disable other user events from Auditing. For Meaningful Use events (for example, encounters that count towards the Seen By denominator) that occurred before the version upgrade, the information may be stored in other tables, but will still be used as part of measure calculations.”
indication- The patient chart includes a value for PATPORTALPIN observation dated no later than 4 business days after the last encounter in the reporting period or by the end of the reporting period, whichever comes first.
PATPORTALPIN is an observation term used to indicate in the chart that a patient has been configured for access to Centricity Patient Portal.
Setup, workflows, and best practices
Setup
To create a quick text entry to add the PATPORTALPIN observation term, go to
Setup > Settings > Chart > Quick Text.
Workflows Measure 1
Register patients - Add a step to your portal access
workflow (for example, quick text) to note a value for PATPORTALPIN in the chart
when you grant portal access to a patient.
Workflows Measure 2
Patients can view, download, and transmit their chart information from a
certified Patient Portal. For example, from Centricity Patient Portal, a patient
can view his or her chart and send (transmit) a copy via secure messaging.