What Meaningful Use Means to Me

ONC has declared 2012 is the year of Meaningful Use.  Let us prepare in 2012 to make it as easy as possible for patients and their healthcare providers to access vital medical data.  Many patients think that interoperability, the ability to transfer their health data electronically between different systems, is happening every time they go to the doctor. I wonder how many times a day patients ask healthcare providers, “Don’t you have that?” and how many times a clinician says, “No, we have to get that information from XYZ.”  The general misconception is because the person at the front office checks you in on a computer your records are in an electronic format, and all it takes is a click of a mouse to move the healthcare data from one place to another.

Meaningful Use is being used as the motivator for healthcare providers to make the move to being able to say, “Yes, I just downloaded what I needed.”  The use of electronic health records unlocks the door to many possibilities. In my opinion I would say the most important feature of using an electronic health record is that is allows spouses to be spouses, friends to be friends, and families to be families.

Did you know that the first 90 days of a diagnosis can be the hardest for a patient and their support system? For those of you with children, do you remember that moment when your whole life changed in an instant? You realized you were never going to be same again? Getting a diagnosis is the same way. You give birth to a whole new life. It is a life filled with uncertainty. You have been catapulted into the world of medicine. There is a new language to learn, there are new people to meet, there are new systems to negotiate, and you have never been so lonely. Everything that you knew is now compromised. You start to die a thousand little deaths every day. You die to the dreams of growing old with your loved one. You die to the future of watching your children grow up, you die to the dreams of being a team. All of the experiences of life you took for granted are now gone. They are slipping through your fingers like grains of sand in an hourglass. The difference is when the sand runs out; there is no one to flip it over. There is nothing else, this life is over.

You see this is not just the story of the patient. It is also the story of the caregiver. The caregiver by default becomes the caretaker of the information. The pressure to make sure every piece of paper is where it is supposed to be, and making sure your loved one is getting the best care possible is like a crushing boulder. You second guess everything you do. When you ask for your loved one’s health information, you pray someone will have compassion and explain what you need, what the right questions are to ask, and where you can go to get what you need.  It is humbling to be grateful because someone was nice to you. You feel like a beggar who has just been given something to eat you did not have to pick out of the trash.  You quickly become a warrior in a fight that you have no control over.  You struggle for every breath you take. You get up every day to face another battle because you know every single bit of effort you put into this fight might mean just one more day to make a memory with the one you love.

When a patient has their healthcare data available electronically, and it can be exchanged, the caretaker can now concentrate on making memories with a loved one. Caregivers are no longer the ones responsible for making sure the data gets to where it needs to be. Data is available with the click of a mouse.  Every key stroke the clinician makes buys a patient just a little more time to make a memory.  Every key stroke unlocks the chains of inefficiency, and frees the caregiver to be the spouse, parent, child, partner, or friend to someone who is facing an insurmountable task….to live.  

This is the definition of Meaningful Use to those that negotiate the world of healthcare every day. Let 2012 be the year of Meaningful Use.