Dive Brief:
- CMS is looking for vendors willing to submit their EMR as a test system to make sure that eligible providers and hospitals can meet measure three of Meaningful Use Stage 2's transitions of care objective.
- To meet the criteria, providers must either perform at least one electronic exchange of a summary of care document with a recipient using a different EMR system; alternatively, they can get into compliance by conducting at least one exchange test with with a CM-designated test EMR during the reporting period.
- Under the program, all designated EMR systems will register with a software system hosted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which will randomly match providers with a test EMR different from their own, giving them a chance to meet the transition-of-care objective.
Dive Insight:
Given how complicated it can be to demonstrate interoperability between systems, this program makes a great deal of sense. While connecting with one test EMR hardly demonstrates complete interoperability -- it's miles from that goal -- it does represent progress. It will be interesting to see how fruitful these vendor-provider partners turn out to be.