More Hospitals Find Meaningful Use Success & CMS Stimulus Payments with ONC Certified EDIS Solution

June 26, 2012 - PRLog -- Under HITECH guidelines, hospitals are able to attest for Meaningful Use with clinical data from an EDIS (Emergency Department Information System), provided it is ONC Certified as a Complete EHR. As early as Oct 2011, it was reported that a Tennessee-based facility was the first to successfully achieve this goal. Since then, many more hospitals have taken advantage of this opportunity with the Emergency Department leading the way (one EDIS vendor recently reported that 42 ED clients successfully attested for Stage 1 of Meaningful Use).

This success underscores the fact that Emergency Departments can meet Meaningful Use attestation and qualify for CMS payments without their entire facility having an ONC Certified EHR (Inpatient/Ambulatory) already in operation. CMS mandates two primary options for the calculation of ED Admissions as they relate to Meaningful Use objectives in Stage 1 of attestation: ‘Observation Services Method’ and ‘All ED Visits Method.’ Hospitals must choose which method is more applicable to their situation, but based on Empower’s experience, the ‘All ED Visits’ method has emerged as the most frequently utilized.

The list of Empower clients garnering CMS stimulus success is steadily growing. And, with many recent implementations of its ONC Certified Empower EDTM product, this list is poised to expand further. To put this in fiscal perspective, many Empower clients stand to receive six to seven figure payments from CMS, based on their ED volumes. The first Empower client to successfully attest, as far back as May 2011, announced they qualified for approximately $8 Million in CMS funds based on their Meaningful Use of Empower’s ED and Inpatient EHR solutions. Such an exciting opportunity is not lost of Empower clients as the EHR firm continues to guide them through the process while maximizing the exciting new tools found in its ONC Certified products for ED, Inpatient, and Ambulatory environments.

For more information on Empower SystemsTM, please call 877-362-3237 or visit online at: www.empower.md