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Hospital Selection of Meaningful Use Public Health Measures

Last Updated

June 2021

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Eligible Hospitals Reporting to the Medicare EHR Incentive Program for Fiscal Year 2014

The CMS EHR Incentive Program provides incentive payments for eligible hospitals to adopt and meaningfully use certified health IT. Among the requirements to receive an incentive payment, participating hospitals must report on public health measures. These measures include the electronic reporting of data regarding: immunizations, emergency department visits (“syndromic surveillance”), and reportable infectious disease laboratory results.

In 2014, 73 percent of participating Medicare eligible hospitals that administered vaccinations were able to report to their local public health registry, 48 percent of participating hospitals that provided urgent care or emergency services were able to electronically report syndromic surveillance data to their local public health agency, and 47 percent of eligible hospitals reported being able to electronically submit reportable laboratory results to their local public health agency. Stage 2 of the EHR Incentive Program requires reporting on all three public health measures when applicable, whereas reporting in the first stage of the program requires reporting on only one of the three measures. Seventy-two percent of stage 2 hospitals reported without exclusion on all applicable public health measures in 2014, compared to 5 percent of stage 1 hospitals.

For more information on hospital reporting on meaningful use public health measures, see ONC Data Brief 22.

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  1. Denominators for the reported percentages vary by measure. 3,969 eligible hospitals reported to the Medicare EHR Incentive Program for fiscal year 2014. Percentages above use this denominator, unless otherwise noted.
  2. Syndromic Surveillance Reporting: 3,906 hospitals reported for fiscal year 2014. This denominator includes only eligible hospitals that offer urgent care or emergency services (see language for exclusion, and measure definitions for stage 1 and for stage 2).
  3. Immunization Registry Reporting: 3,855 hospitals reported for fiscal year 2014. This denominator includes only eligible hospitals that administer vaccinations that are reportable to the local public health agency (see language for exclusion, and measure definitions for stage 1 and for stage 2).
  4. Electronic submission of reportable laboratory results: See language for measure definitions and exclusion for stage 1, and for stage 2.
  5. 1,811 hospitals reported for stage 2, while 2,158 reported for stage 1. A hospital was considered to have reported on all applicable public health measures if it reported on all three appropriate measures, or selected either the “do not vaccinate” or “no urgent care” for the applicable measure and otherwise reported on all other measures. A hospital was considered to have reported on at least one of the three public health measures if it selected, without any exclusion, at least one of the public health measures. Denominators for these calculations included all hospitals that attested, relevant for the stage and exclusion as noted previously.
  6. See the “Definitions” section of ONC Data Brief 22 for measure descriptions and other information related to hospital reporting of meaningful use public health measures.
  7. See the “Appendix” section of ONC Data Brief 22 for a table of this data.