¶ … Patient Electronic Access The objective of this study is to investigate the application of the electronic health record at the inner City health hospital. The goal of implementing the program is to allow patients to have easy access to their health data and information to assist them sharing their health information with other healthcare and personal care providers. This study investigates the application of Measure 1 Stage 1 for the City Health organization. Following the benefits of the electronic health records, the City Health has decided to implement the new program. The program will allow patients to access their information on demand through PHR (personal health record). However, the City Hospital will be able to derive benefits from the program by setting aside $170,000 for the implementation costs and $90,500 maintenance expenses. Moreover, the City Hospital should organize a training program for the staff to make the program be successful.

Introduction

"The Patient Electronic Access provides patients the ability to view online, download, and transmit their health information within 4 business days of the information being available to the EP." (CMS, 2016 p 1).

The Medicaid and Medicare introduce the electronic health record incentive programs to encourage patients' involvement in their healthcare systems. In other words, accessibility of patient health information online allows patients to make an informed decision regarding their healthcare and provide critical information to their personal caregivers and care providers. The objective of the EP is to allow a physician views health information online, downloading the information and transmitting the health information within four business days to patients. The City Health hospital has been using the manual method to record patient's health data for several decades. The method is not only time-consuming, the manual method is also not cost-effective because a large amount of time is wasted before recording and accessing patient's information. Moreover, the hospital does not have the policy to allow patients accessing their health information. Nevertheless, the City Hospital is under the Medicaid and Medicare program, and the hospital realizes more than 70% of their revenue from the Medicaid and Medicare government program. Since, the government has mandated all hospitals under the Medicaid and Medicare programs to implement the electronic health record incentive programs, the management of the City hospital has made a decision to implement the program. The objective of this project is to investigate the application of the Meaningful Use...

The goals of Meaningful Use are to:
• Improve safety, quality, and efficiency of care

• Engage family and patients in the healthcare delivery

• Improve care coordination

• Improve public health and population

• Maintain security and privacy of patients' health information.

The Recovery Act that establishes the Meaning Use certifies the application of e-prescribing, and uses certified EHR technology to enhance clinical quality care. Basic features of the Meaningful Use Stage 1 are to achieve the clinical and objective quality measures. A hospital that intends to apply the Measure 1 of the patient electronic access must have 80% of their patients having their records stored in the certified EHR technology. In the Stage 1 of the Measure 1, the eligible professionals are to complete 15 core objectives where 5 out of 10 are from the menu set. Moreover, hospital intending to implement Stage 1 must complete 14 core objectives and 15 CCM (clinical quality measures).

The hospitals adopting the Medicaid and Medicare are to implement an effective EHR to receive payments from the federal government. Since it is mandatory for the City Hospital to adopt the Meaningful Use, the hospital should implement Measure 1, Stage 1 to enhance the quality of healthcare delivery. While many patients have their primary care physicians, however, many of them are not affiliated with the hospitals. Thus, the goal of the plan is to transmit the patient data electronically and providing access for patients. The Measure 1 of the patient electronic access is designed to provide a timely access to the electronic health records for patients. Moreover, the Measure 1 allows patients to have a timely access to their health information online as well as downloading the information, and transmitting the information to the third party subject to the EP discretion. The EP Measure 1 also has an exclusion that states that the participating hospital should neither create or order information listed in the EP inclusion except for provider's name, patient' name and provider office contact information. However, the provision of Measure 1 prohibits the health care providers from having access to the email addresses of patients. Although, some CEHRT (certified EHR technology) products can be designed in this fashion, however, if CEHRT requires patients' emails, and they elect to opt participation or refuse to provide their emails, the provider…