SAN FRANCISCO – The American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) has created an EHR checklist to help ophthalmologists comply with meaningful use.
Though other specialties have worked on similar checklists, the AAO said the list is "the first of its kind" developed for a specialty since the federal government’s release of the meaningful use requirements.
The checklist is part of a report by the Academy's Medical Information Technology Committee (MITC) aimed at enhancing care and physician communication, the group said.
According Michael Chiang, MD, lead author of the report, the list includes 17 essential and six desirable features in the areas of clinical documentation; ophthalmic vital signs and laboratory studies; medical and surgical management; and ophthalmic measurement and imaging devices.
"Our recommendations define what will make a system work efficiently within the unique workflow and data management needs of an ophthalmology practice," said Chiang, who is chairman of the MITC.
Flora Lum, MD, AAO’s policy director of Quality of Care and Knowledge Base Development said the Academy developed the checklist because it was fielding a lot of concerns from its members about meaningful use. “We decided it was time to be more proactive,” she said.
AAO has advised its members not to begin participation in the EHR incentive program until Stage 2, Lum said, because the Stage 1 measures seem to apply mainly to primary care. However, AAO has already begun to discuss the checklist with EHR companies.
“We want to give them a clear idea of what we want, and we want to determine the companies that will provide for us at a future date,” Lum said.
John Lynn, founder of the blog EMRandHIPAA.com, said one of the biggest trends he sees now in the EHR market is the specialty-specific EHR software.
More and more specialists are opting for EHR software that is specifically tailored to their specialty,” Lynn said. “In fact, it seems that most of the EHR vendors out there realize that their EHR works better for certain specialties and so they have focused their marketing to those specific specialties.”
“We decided it was time to be more proactive.”
– Flora Lum, MD
