Preparing for meaningful use
Electronic case reporting (eCR) is the initial use case that the Digital Bridge initiative is advancing to improve the bidirectional exchange of public health data between public health agencies and health care providers.
Beginning in 2018, eCR will be a public health reporting measure that eligible hospitals (EHs) and professionals (EPs) may perform for credit under specific Medicaid or Medicare programs (e.g., Meaningful Use, Quality Payment Program).
Whether eCR is available for any particular EH or EP depends on the eCR readiness of their jurisdictional public health agency. EHs and EPs must check with their local and state public health agency to determine the eCR readiness status.
As the Digital Bridge collaborates with seven sites to implement an eCR approach developed for nationwide scalability and enhanced delivery of effective disease control and patient care practices, there will be many lessons learned about what it takes for a public health agency to become ready for eCR. These lessons will be shared once the implementations have gone into production and best practices are identified.
Meanwhile, as public health officials work to determine or advance their agency’s readiness for eCR, the following guidance documents developed by the Meaningful Use (MU) Public Health (PH) Reporting Requirements Task Force should help: