Meaningful Use Final Rules a 'Roadmap' Not a Checklist, Mostashari Says

Look for the Office of the National Coordinator to release by next year all of the final rules for Stage 2 of meaningful use.

Farzad Mostashari, MD, the National Coordinator for Health IT, explained that his office is busy reviewing information from the Health IT Policy Committee, which in early June recommended delaying for a year, until 2014, Stage 2 of the meaningful use program for those providers that comply with Stage 1 criteria in 2011. Without being specific, Mostashari said that while the final rules will pull from the policy committee recommendations, "they will not be identical," although "a lot of deference will be given to the committee." Mostashari challenged the audience to not think of meaningful use as a random bureaucratic checklist of hoops to jump through, but rather "the roadmap for delivering higher quality healthcare." He said the mindset is shifting from seeing meaningful use as a distraction from providing quality patient care to the "way to get there."