Assessing readiness for meeting meaningful use: identifying electronic health record functionality and measuring levels of adoption.

With the passage, in 2009, of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH),part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), over 19 Billion dollars was targeted for healthcare information technology (HIT) projects to accelerate the adoption of electronic Health Records (EHR)s. Intermountain Healthcare facilities and providers are eligible for approximately $93 million in incentives from HITECH, if we use a "certified EHR" in a "meaningful way". This paper describes the current state of our EHR functions and EHR adoption compared to those required by the HITECH act. We describe the method used to determine the gaps between our EHR functions and EHR adoption. Our analysis identified 17 significant EHR enhancements needed to become certified and identified 42 meaningful use workflow gaps.