CMS Issues More Answers to EHR Incentive Program Questions

Question: For the certification criteria that providers must have in place to meet the Clinical Decision Support (CDS) objective, what type of interventions must the EHR technology trigger to meet the criteria? For this and for the Eligible Provider and Eligible Hospital Core Measures related to the Objective “use clinical decision support to improve performance on high-priority health conditions,” are “pop-up” alerts the only type of intervention that a provider can use to meet the CDS objective?

Answer: The intention of the CDS intervention certification requirement is to ensure certified EHR technology helps providers make timely and informed decisions. The certification requirement that CDS interventions be ‘triggered’ means that a CDS intervention – which may come in many forms other than “pop-ups” – be based on relevant, timely patient and care process information and that it may appear in ‘real time’ when it is most relevant to improve care provision. Read the complete answer.

Question: I am an eligible professional. What should I do if my patients don’t have broadband access?

Answer: Some meaningful use objectives require broadband access. The infrastructure required for the Secure Electronic Messaging objective is similar to the infrastructure required for the Patient Electronic Access objective’s successful usage of an online patient portal, as required in the second measure. Read the complete answer.

Question: In the inpatient setting, when providing patient data to satisfy the Summary of Care and View Online, Download, and Transmit objectives, does a hospital have to provide two different documents for patients and providers?

Answer: Eligible hospitals may create one consolidated document for the download requirement of the View Online, Download, and Transmit objective and the Summary of Care objective, as long as it: Read the complete answer.

See more CMS FAQs published on next pages.