More than 25% of patients seen by an eligible professional (EP) or discharged from a hospital or emergency department (ED) must "actively engage" with their electronic health records (EHRs).
I said that in my experience most of the patients I took care of would have been unlikely to engage their EHRs and expressed concern that physicians would be penalized for their patients not reaching the 25% threshold.
A reader commented that the VA has had a patient portal called the Blue Button since 2010. He pointed out that in May of 2012, more than 500,000 unique patients had accessed their EMR. He meant this as a rebuttal to my opinion about the potential level of engagement.
However, it turns out that in 2012 over 6.3 million patients were treated by the VA system. [See page 4 of this link.] If you divide 1 million by 6.3 million, you get 15.9%.
It seems like they have quite a way to go to get to 25%
I rest my case.
