The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid have released the definition of ”meaningful use” of Electronic Medical Records. This initiative, part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), offers several thousand dollars to each health care provider as a motivation for adopting electronic records. However, providers cannot just install the electronic system but have to demonstrate that they’re using it in ways that will improve patient care, reduce costs, allow different providers to securely share data, and provide data to government researchers in order to find better ways to care for patients. That’s what “meaningful use” means.
There’s now also a meaningful use microsite at the HHS’s Health IT site. (You can even get the whole 864 pages as a PDF (link:
Our EHR system will meet the definition of “meaningful use”.