Meaningful Use Site Brings Healthcare Community Together

Community Objectives:

Learn how to quickly and correctly implement meaningful use of an electronic health record system to enhance patient care and benefit from government incentives.
Connect with others who have successfully implemented an electronic health record (EHR) for meaningful use.
Share information that helps others successfully implement an EHR for meaningful use.

by Chris Sapardanis

More than half a billion people use Facebook and Twitter each month. Lucy Molfetas isn’t one of them. The director of Clinical Systems at University of Pennsylvania Health System admits she’s not really into social media, but when it comes to work, she’s definitely open to learning.

Following the release of the final rule defining meaningful use of an electronic health record (EHR) last July, Molfetas and more than 1,000 others in the U.S. healthcare industry have connected on CSC’s Meaningful Use Community, an interactive and educational online community for learning about the subject.

The 862-page final rule spells out what hospitals must do by October 2013 to achieve meaningful use of EHRs and be eligible for Medicare and Medicaid funds available in the 2009 Stimulus Package.

In 2009, University of Pennsylvania Health System (UPHS) completed a gap analysis with CSC to assess the research and clinical care organization’s readiness for meaningful use based on the proposed rule. Now that the final rule is available, UPHS, like many hospitals nationwide, has begun working toward compliance.

“There’s really a great need for information on this topic,” says Molfetas, who leads the meaningful use project at UPHS. “We are a very large organization, so the incentives are attractive to us, but I have many questions, and I’m trying to educate myself.”

Just as Facebook users check their News Feed throughout the day, Molfetas checks in on the community often to see what’s new. “You really want to get every piece of information you can and read the latest from across the country,” she says. “The community is a very good tool. It has valuable information and gives you something to think about.”

The Meaningful Use Community features the latest information about the federal government’s criteria for meaningful use. It describes not only what provider organizations must do to achieve meaningful use, but also strategies for how to achieve each of the objectives for hospitals, ambulatory facilities, and eligible professionals.

Joining the conversation

The community allows members to access a network of peers and experts to discuss opportunities, challenges, and best practices related to achieving meaningful use. Members can ask questions and start discussions with other healthcare professionals and experts who have experience in implementing EHRs.

CSC’s community subject matter experts are knowledgeable in computerized physician order entry (CPOE); medication reconciliation; physician documentation; performance improvement; physician adoption; organizational change management; health information exchanges; certification; and Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH).

The experts are well-versed in topics to engage members on and helps create a bridge from CSC’s established healthcare thought leadership footprint on csc.com/health_services and other publications to the new collaborative social space.

“Our thought leadership helps people understand the bigger picture of how achieving meaningful use is important, but also how implementing EHRs correctly allows you to improve patient safety and care,” says Lisa Ragusa, director of marketing, CSC Healthcare. “The community is taking this thought leadership to the next level by allowing people to interact with the experts and their peers.”

CSC’s Meaningful Use Community is designed for clinical, administrative and technical executives; professionals; and decision-makers from various health-related organizations at all stages of the EHR implementation process.

Matt Mattox heads product development and marketing at Axial Exchange, which provides interoperability software for hospitals. While researching the different interpretations of the final rule, he joined the community and became involved in discussions.

“We definitely wanted to get a sense of what the zeitgeist was on meaningful use,” says Mattox, who wrote a 27-page summary of the final rule, and posted it to the community. “It’s been a great place to get a cross section of perspectives from consultants to providers to vendors like myself.”

As a consultant at a health insurance company, Naveen Rao came across the community while exploring how the meaningful use provisions would impact insurers and posted an open question to the site to learn from members and experts.

“I wasn’t sure if it was a topical question or not, but there were people who were able to help me and direct me to some resources,” he says. “On the site, you can tap into people’s areas of expertise instead of just running a Google search and trying to find answers on your own.”

Socializing business and CRM

Companies across all industries are increasingly turning to social business platforms like the Meaningful Use Community to build stronger relationships with customers.

A Forrester Research report states “Social Computing and social media represent a new wave of energy sweeping through business. ‘Social’ holds out the promise of a customer-driven business model, one in which the voice of the customer influences business strategy and where corporate marketing truly responds to customer needs.”¹

Claire Flanagan, director of CSC’s enterprise social collaboration and communities strategy, speaks about social business at many industry and global events. “We’re seeing a huge trend in the industry where it’s so easy to get information on social platforms that sometimes what may be more trusted is what comes from one’s own network rather than from materials a company might traditionally provide,” she says. “While the Meaningful Use Community is very much a company-sponsored site, the value here is that healthcare providers can ask questions, share best practices, and learn from other practitioners who may be at other stages in their journey, which can really help someone in a very practical way.

“We’re realizing that our customers expect this type of engagement, wanting the ability to not only co-create and ask the company questions directly, but also to ask and network with individuals like themselves,” Flanagan adds.

Increasingly, communities are becoming a core component in a company’s business, marketing and social CRM strategy. An Altimeter report says “... the rapid adoption of social networks has shifted the balance of power to the customer. Companies and organizations have fallen behind in connecting with customers, and realize that they must find a way to at least participate in the conversation. Some still yearn to regain control of the customer relationship. The reality – this is no longer possible.”²

Customer and prospect communities are one facet of CSC’s overall digital marketing and social business ecosystem. The healthcare community joins other communities in an external-facing portfolio including WikonnecT, the largest social network in the financial services industry, and InTouch, CSC’s new community for alumni. CSC also has an internal, employee-only community.

Chris Sapardanis is a senior writer for CSC’s corporate office.

¹ The CIO’s Guide to Social Computing Leadership, by Nigel Fenwick, Forrester Research

² Altimeter Report: The 18 Use Cases of Social CRM, The New Rules of Relationship Management