On Thursday, July 16, 2009, the HIT Policy Committee presented its revised recommendation on the “meaningful use” definition. At the end of this meeting, the HIT Policy Committee forwarded its recommendation on the “meaningful use” definition to the Office of National Coordinator per the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (“HITECH Act”). The revised meaningful use matrix, 2011 Draft Quality Measures and other materials presented or discussed during the MU meeting on July 16, 2009 are available on the HIT Policy Committee webpage.

The meeting included an overview by Jodi Daniel from the Office of National Coordinator (ONC) of the public comments to the first draft. This was followed by Paul Tang’s presentation of the Meaningful Use Workgroup’s recommendations. The HIT Policy Committee also heard recommendations from the Information Exchange Workgroup and Certification/Adoption Workgroup. The HIT Standards Committee also presented an update on its progress.

In the days leading up to this meeting, several groups with special HIT interests made presentations and recommendations to the ONC and the HIT Policy Committee. One such group included the Electronic Health Records Association (EHR Association), which announced on July 13, 2009, that it had made recommendations on Meaningful Use to the ONC. The EHR Association press release stated, “The Association specifically called for 2011 objectives to be based on software and standards that are currently deployed and implemented, with a focus on adoption and use of comprehensive EHRs and recognition of the need for differences between inpatient and ambulatory meaningful use criteria.” In addition, the EHR Association cautioned against mandating computerized physician order entry (CPOE) as part of the 2011 meaningful use criteria, stating, “We believe that 2011 ‘meaningful use’ criteria should reflect an incremental, rational approach to achieving full CPOE over time.”