Committee Looks Ahead to Stage 3, Makes Recommendations

Stage 2 Final Rule is barely in the books, and already there is one committee from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) that is looking ahead to Stage 3. The Health Information Technology Policy Committee (HITPC), a federal advisory committee that aims to advise the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on federal HIT policy issues, recently released its recommendations for Stage 3 of the Medicare and Medicaid EHR meaningful use (MU) incentive program.

According to a HITPC Stage 3 Request for Comment document, “The stage 3 vision includes a collaborative model of care with shared responsibility and accountability, building upon the previous MU objectives.” The committee says it recommends Stage 3 begin the shift from a setting-specific focus to a collaborative, patient- and family- centric approach.

The objectives, according to HITPC, support new models of care, address national health priorities like Million Hearts, have broad applicability, promote advancement, be achievable, and reflect reasonableness/feasibility of products or organizational capacity. It also prefers to have standards available if the technology is not widely adopted.

While the list of Stage 3 recommendations includes numerous items, some that standout are raising the threshold of clinical decision support interventions from five to 15 for all eligible hospitals and providers (EH, EP), raising the required percentage of clinical lab results implemented in the EHR from 55 percent of results to 80 percent of results, and requiring more than 10 percent of patients use secure electronic messaging to communicate with EPs. Currently, it’s just required EPs have this capability.

Here is a complete look at the HITPC’s Stage 3 recommendations.