[Techtaffy Newsdesk]

Ministry Health Care, a 15 hospital health system operating in Wisconsin and Minnesota, has become one of the 17 hospital systems nationwide to receive certification for their hospital electronic medical record systems.

The hospital had a development partnership whereby Thomson Reuters created a Meaningful Use Quality Manager product to help Ministry and other providers with multiple technology platforms.

Meaningful Use refers to part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) which authorizes the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to provide reimbursement incentives for physician and hospital providers that become “meaningful users” of electronic health records (EHR).  These incentive payments began in 2011 and will gradually phase down, putting the onus on providers to prove that they can meet meaningful use requirements.

The Thomson Reuters Meaningful Use Quality Manager was developed collaboratively with clinical and IT staff at Ministry Health Care.  The solution builds on Thomson Reuters’ hospital quality management and reporting data and analytics, customized to meet the specific reporting objectives of Meaningful Use.