Is all the MU data “meaningful”?

We interrupt these dog days of summer for a bit of a doctors’ food fight. At issue is what this doctor refers to as the “meaningless data” required under the Meaningful Use regulations. Not bashful about throwing the first piece of pie, she begins by announcing that “Race is a medically meaningless concept.”

Her real point relates less to race issues and more to the data the MU regulations require doctors to collect if they want to qualify for MU incentives. Ending as subtly as she begins, she declares “How Orwellian to require that “Meaningful Use” incorporate the recording of medically meaningless data.”...