Meaningful Use Norms
"Meaningful Use Norms" are about how a clinical information system (CIS) can be used in ways that promote improved quality, safety and efficiency of care. They apply to all clinicians who see patients where Connect Care is the record of care. Clinicians may comply personally and directly. Alternately, they may participate in groups that ensure compliance as a team responsibility.
Minimum Use Norms compliance is a necessary but not sufficient condition for Meaningful Use Norms adoption. Meaningful use depends upon minimal use, leveraging things like essential structured data capture to enable decision, documentation and inquiry supports for care coordination, patient engagement and population health.
Bottom Line
Connect Care users should avail themselves of training and feedback opportunities promoting adherence to meaningful use norms wherever Connect Care is the record of care. New norms will be added as tools emerge to promote implementation, feedback and continuing improvement in areas where Connect Care can facilitate behaviour changes that can improve clinical practices.
Promoting Best Practices
Order Sets - use to facilitate evidence-informed care and reduce unhelpful practice variation within encounters.
Care Paths - use to facilitate guideline-directed chronic disease management across encounters.
Transition Planning
Expected Discharge Date (EDD) - management to align multidisciplinary discharge planning efforts.
Transition Care Plan - awareness and use to better coordinate efforts of multiple disciplines.
Discharge Readiness - use of discharge readiness "traffic lights" to promote rapid sharing of information about removal of barriers to discharge.
Provider Communications
Primary Care Provider Attachment - validated at every inpatient encounter and reviewed prior to discharge.
Standardized Discharge Documentation - including appropriate details from transition care plan.
Discharge Follow-up Recommendations - included in summative documentation and sensitive to readmission risk (LACE Index).
Patient Education and Communications
Encounter After Visit Summary Content - including details of any planned followup, indicated educational handouts or other relevant multidisciplinary instructions (e.g., diet instructions)
MyAHS Connect (patient portal) Activation - maximizing number of patients activated, pending (or explicitly declined) by the end of an encounter.
Importance
Adherence to meaningful use norms by Connect Care clinicians helps;
Improve quality, safety and efficiency of care.
Increase patient engagement and participation in care.
Improve care coordination, especially at care transitions and communications between systems (interoperability).
Attend to both individual and population health improvement (e.g., disease prevention).
Ensure privacy and security protection for personal health information.
Promoting Compliance
Feedback about trends in norms compliance can help clinicians identify potential workflow challenges and consider options for optimizing both the user's experience and the positive impact of Connect Care. Connect Care dashboards are provided for both individuals and groups.
Failure to adhere to meaningful use norms misses opportunities to leverage Connect Care for process and outcomes improvement.