Expand EHR Knowledge For Stage 2 Meaningful Use Success: Q&A

Jennifer Bresnick | EHR Intelligence | August 12, 2013

Nancy Fennell, Director of the Regional Extension Center of New Hampshire (RECNH), has overseen New Hampshire’s runaway EHR adoption success, recently announcing that 65% of primary care providers and 85% of critical access hospitals (CAHs) have achieved meaningful use.  To conquer Stage 2 of the EHR Incentive program, providers must learn how to use their EHRs to their full capacity while focusing on what make sense for their workflow and their patients, she says.  Fennell sat down with EHRintelligence to discuss the challenges of Stage 2 and how providers can work with industry partners to get the most out of their investments.

What is the overview of EHR adoption for providers in New Hampshire?

We’re doing really well.  In New Hampshire, we’re a very forward-thinking healthcare community.  Many of our providers were already on an EHR when the Regional Extension Center came on board, so we found that a good percentage of the providers were already familiar and actively using one, even if it may not have been a certified one at that point.  So that was a big hurdle that had already been overcome for us right in the beginning.  We were targeted to work with 1000 primary care providers, and we’ve actually expanded our scope, and now we’re working with specialists, as well.  That’s a fee-for-service program that we’ve developed.  We’ve probably worked with about 1500 providers all told.