Back to the drawing board on meaningful use

The federal advisory policy committee on health IT sent its workgroup back to the drawing board on Tuesday with recommendations the workgroup had made earlier in the day to outline the criteria. The HIT policy committee's workgroup, composed of members of the private sector, government and nonprofit organizations, have been pulling together criteria for a meaningful use definition over the past month. The criteria were presented at a Tuesday meeting of the full policy committee for a vote of approval, with a public comment period open for the next 10 days. After a "lively discussion [on the criteria] and considerable input on meaningful use, we decided to send the workgroup back to work on another set," David Blumenthal, MD, national coordinator for health information technology, said. The policy committee expects to receive a new set of recommendations from its workgroup at its July 16 meeting.