FALLS CHURCH, VA – CSC Global Healthcare, a Falls Church, Va.-based research group has developed and launched a new online community with the intent of cultivating a network healthcare executives who can discuss the final rule on the first stage of meaningful use.

"The community is designed so that providers and executives can come to this site to learn about how others are meeting meaningful and also to share their own experiences," said Tim Raimey, community manager at CSC. "The goal is to provide a platform where people can ask questions. We have a number of experts and white papers available on the site to help provide information."

Raimey said CSC opted to create a new platform so it could be dedicated to the  topic of meaningful use; the use of traditional social media such as LinkedIn or Facebook wouldn't be the most optimal platform, because of the large amounts of already existing healthcare and health IT information, said Raimey.

CSC officials have provided a number of experts to answer questions from users. In addition, the community offers white papers on the topic of meaningful use and best practices implementing IT. Raimey said that because of the direction of this site, it's unique. "A lot of our consultants are dealing with private practices and trying to find out about meaningful use. CSC hasn't seen one collaborative site that is dedicated for one specific topic."

CSC began a preliminary showing in mid July and has enjoyed steady growth to more than 400 members since the beginning of August.