Markle Foundation: Letter From Zoe Baird

Zoe Baird
President, Markle Foundation

Dear Colleagues,

It has been almost a year since President Obama signed the Recovery Act with economic stimulus that included about $40 billion to help finance health information technology. Soon, we expect that Medicare and Medicaid programs will release criteria for the “Meaningful Use” of health information technology (IT)—the metrics by which doctors and hospitals will qualify for the new incentive payments. Through Markle’s ongoing collaboration across a wide spectrum of leaders in the health sector, we have put forward a vision for guiding the definition of Meaningful Use so that the investments are used to improve health, increase the cost-effectiveness of care, protect privacy, and encourage innovation.

In a letter dated November 13, a diverse group of collaborators recommended that four strategic questions be applied to the pending Meaningful Use rule:
Are there clear and achievable health and efficiency goals?
Do the requirements motivate information use to improve health and cost-effectiveness of care?
Do the requirements foster patient engagement in reaching the Meaningful Use goals?
Do the requirements focus on information use and allow for ongoing innovation across a wide array of participants, rather than prescribing specific technology features?

Read the full letter at: http://www.markle.org/downloadable_assets/20091113_mu_letter.pdf.

This month, in a new set of recommendations, we asked how doctors and hospitals should show ‘Meaningful Use’ of health IT. A broad range of health leaders—convened by Markle, the Center for American Progress, and the Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform at Brookings—offered the following:
Steer the Meaningful Use definition based on a strategy with ambitious but achievable timelines for health and cost-effectiveness improvements.
Prioritize “measures that matter” for health improvement—measures that demonstrate improved health outcomes and greater cost-effectiveness.
Be operationally feasible for 2011 and beyond for a broad range of providers, vendors, and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
Leverage existing quality reporting efforts if they meet these criteria and work in alignment toward Meaningful Use goals.
Implement processes that will proactively improve data quality and data integrity over time.
Minimize unnecessary burden and cost by enabling reporting of “measures that matter” as a byproduct of using qualified health information technology.
Give providers timely access to the quality and cost information they need to improve care.

Read the recommendations at: http://www.markle.org/downloadable_assets/20091204_meaningful_use.pdf.

Please also see our website for additional resources on Meaningful Use and privacy provisions of ARRA:http://www.connectingforhealth.org/arra/comments.html.

Sincerely,

Zoë Baird, President
Markle Foundation