Pathway to Inpatient MU 2014 Success: View, Download, and Transmit

For facilities that are looking to report in Stage 2, or Stage 1 2014 ed, the calculations for the View, Download, Transmit (V/D/T) requirement are the same, requiring more than 50% of all patients have the ability to access their information online. However, Stage 2 also has an additional measure not required for Stage 1 2014 ed. In this edition of “Pathway to MU Success,” we will closely examine exactly what the requirements are, and how a facility can meet those requirements. The second part of the Stage 2 measure, requiring more than 5% of patients to access their information online (also known as “Patient Portal Usage”), will be investigated in depth in the next edition of this series, which will be available in early March. Stage 1, 2014 – Measure #10 of 11: Provide patients the ability to view online, download, and transmit information about a hospital admission. This means that “more than 50% of all unique patients discharged from the inpatient or emergency departments of the eligible hospital or CAH during the reporting period have their information available online, with the ability to view, download, and transmit to a third party information about a hospital admission, within 36 hours of discharge.”¹

This was a change (the addition of a new core objective) for Stage 1 for 2014 and beyond, not previously needed for the MU Stage 1 (2013 Definition).²

Stage 2, 2014 – Measure #6 of 16: Provide patient the ability to view online, download, and transmit information about a hospital admission. There are two parts to the Stage 2 measure. Part one dictates that “more than 50 percent of all unique patients discharged from the inpatient or emergency departments of the eligible hospital or CAH during the EHR reporting period have their information available online, with the ability to view, download, and transmit to a third party information about a hospital admission, within 36 hours of discharge.”³ Notice that Stage 1, 2014 and Stage 2 (part 1) have the same requirements to meet this measure. The NextGen Inpatient Clinicals application will calculate the corresponding reports in the same manner. The denominator (eligible instances) of the report is based on the number of patients who have been discharged. The numerator (meets performance) is the number of those patients who have been enrolled in the NextGen^® Patient Portal. After dividing the two numbers, the performance rate must be greater than 50% to meet this measure. To increase the numerator of the report, all patients should be asked if they would like to be enrolled for the portal. Select the Patient > Patient drop down menu > Patient Portal. A screen is presented with the questions “Do you wish to enroll in the Patient Portal?” If an answer of “Yes” or “No” is selected, both answers will positively increase the report (meets performance/match = yes). An answer of “Did not ask” or leaving the field blank will result in a negative increase in the report (meets performance/match = no). If the patient would like to be enrolled in the Patient Portal, the user should select the “Yes” option and enter the patient’s email address. After clicking Submit, the system will provide enrollment information that should be printed and handed to the patient. This temporary information is vital to allow the patient (or their representative) access to the NextGen Patient Portal account. In order to meet this measure, it is the recommendation of NextGen Hospital Solutions that hospital leadership implement a facility-wide policy requiring system users to ask patients if they would like to be enrolled prior to discharge. This should become part of the normal discharge process. The patient’s C-CDA document will then be automatically uploaded to the Patient Portal upon completion of their Discharge Assessment and/or when the registration changes their patient status to “Discharged.” For any patients who were not asked within the facility, a callback system can be implemented, as long as the information has been captured within 36 hours. For patients who were enrolled after discharge, the user needs to ensure that the patient’s C-CDA document has been uploaded to the Patient Portal, via the “Upload to Portal” button, in the View CDA Documents tab. Additional information and resources are available on the NextGen Healthcare Knowledge Exchange for helping your facility meet this measure. If you have any additional questions, please email HospitalSupport@NextGen.com. Be sure to look for the next edition of “Pathway to Inpatient MU Success,” where we will investigate Part 2 of the MU2 – Measure #6 requirements, Patient Portal Usage. Additional resources: