SAN ANTONIO, TX – It helped that Stage 1 meaningful use requirements matched the strategic plan that MedCentral Health System in Shelby, Ohio, already had in place, says Mike Mistretta, vice president and CIO of the two-hospital health system.

Mistretta, whose health system was the first to attest to meaningful use of an electronic health record, was part of a three-member panel last week at the fall forum of the College of Health Information Management Executives (CHIME). The panel discussed strategies for completing Stage 1 and moving to Stage 2.

MedCentral is a two-hospital, 351-bed health organization in north central Ohio, north of the Cleveland Clinic.

Attestation took an organization-wide effort, Mistretta said, but likely went more smoothly than it would have had MedCentral not already been on a similar path. Successfully meeting Stage 1 goals is not the end, he said.

“We attested in March, but continue to raise numbers and to work through menu items,” he said. “We are well positioned for Stage 2.”

Karen Thomas, vice president and CIO of Main Line Health, a six-hospital system in suburban Philadelphia, said Main Line is well on its way to Stage 1, and plans to attest in February 2012. Main Line is already collecting its 90 days worth of data required for attestation, she said. Physician practices will come next.

Upgrade of Main Line’s EHR system took significant time and effort, Thomas said.

“We were in upgrade hell for a month,” she said, noting that Main Line beefed up its implementation staff by 10 people. All primary care physicians are up on the EHR, she said.

Linda Reed, RN, vice president and CIO of Atlantic Health System, a three hospital, 1,300 bed, 340 physician system in Morristown, Summit and Newton, New Jersey, which she describes as a “very competitive, and hospital-dense area,” plans to attest to Stage 1 in early 2012.

“We had quite a few organizational priorities to handle,” she said.

For Atlantic, the meaningful use process started in 2009. Having a dedicated meaningful use project manager is a boon, Reed said. One of the challenges now, though, is keeping meaningful use top-of-mind.

“To some of the C-suite,” she said, “meaningful use is already yesterday’s news.” 

Main Line, too, hired a project manager to keep track of meaningful use. Having a project manager and a few workhorse committees helped keep the project on track.

“We are a large organization with a lot of moving parts,” said Thomas. “We divided up the tasks to committees.”

Though the IT team is and must be very much involved in meaningful use, it is not an IT project per se, said Mistretta. "Ninety percent of what you have to do is clinical-based,” he said. That’s why is was critical to obtain physician buy-in. Med Central’s physician adviser group went to some of the most resistant doctors and got them on board – the ones who said “if I can do this, anyone can.”

All three CIOs recommend keeping a close eye on the project every step of the way.

“Do all this by running the reports and keeping track of where you are,” Mistretta said. “Understand the numbers.”