The idea that Meaningful Use and ICD-10 are challenging problems rather than complimentary initiatives is deceptive. For many of those who were able to understand the frightening realities of meeting the MU Stage 1 requirements like staffing, new systems, costs etc, know that ICD-10 was delayed a year to help us out. For most of us Stage 1 is done and now it’s time for Stage 2. Meaningful Use Stage 2 objective cannot be achieved without ICD-10.

Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary Kathleen Sebelius recently said: “Any further delay would be a distinct disadvantage to CMS and the industry because ICD-10 is integrated into other e-health initiatives. CMS [Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services] is depending upon the granularity of ICD-10 data to contribute to improved quality and outcomes data, provide cost effective approaches to delivering health care, and supply us with information for better research”

A number of objectives of Meaningful Use Stage 2 include
  • Exchange information relating to health between different healthcare organizations
  • Engaging the patients through EHRs via the patient portals
  • Enhancement in the reporting of quality measures by using correct data

Without the ICD-10 and the coding standards of the rest of the world it will be very difficult to achieve the above stated objectives of Stage 2. Otherwise without the ICD-10 the outcomes are
  • Ambiguity in the information exchange
  • Patients will get confused by patient portals if they are incomplete or inaccurate
  • Quality measurement will be affected due to obsolete information

Amazingly we are observing that hospitals are also identifying the advantages of aligning these initiatives by stressing the need for improvement in clinical documentation measures that will positively affect the performance of the areas including finance, clinical and administration. At the same time combining the changes in education and workflow they can minimize the costly inefficiencies.
Farzad Mostashari, the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) said that he believes ICD-10 can be a source of motivation for the providers.
All of this is a lot of work. But we have seen the achievements by the industry in Meaningful Use are impressive so far. Thus we need to keep the energy going and later harvest the rewards.