ehr onc final certification - Department of Health Care Services

Several commenters requested clarification of the term “upon request.” One commenter
wanted to know which persons would be authorized to request the patient reminder list
and how often. Another commenter suggested that the phrase “upon request” be
removed, as it believed that outpatient physicians could make significant advances in the
health of their patients by generating and delivering reminders at every encounter.
Response. In response to comments, we have revised this certification criterion to
more clearly articulate the capability we expect Certified EHR Technology to include.
CMS discusses and clarifies the intended meaning of “patient preferences” in the
Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs final rule and because this term is
derived from the meaningful use objective, we encourage commenters to review CMS’s
responses to their requests for clarification. Consistent with the revisions we made to the
“generate patient lists” certification criterion, we believe that Certified EHR Technology
should be able to leverage the information, specifically the structured data it had available
to it, to assist eligible professionals and eligible hospitals generate a patient reminder list.
We have removed “upon request” from the certification criterion, because, after further
review, we believe that the action of requesting a list is implied by the certification
criterion and the meaningful use measure, and therefore, unnecessary to further specify.
Comments. Two commenters stated that specialists will use patient reminders
differently than primary care providers. These commenters worried that some patients'
preferences may exceed a system's current capabilities and one commenter requested that
the phrase “with respect to system capability” be added after “patient preferences.”
Response. We understand these commenters’ points of view, however, we do not
believe that this addition is necessary given the references in the certification criterion to
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