As providers across the country are preparing for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the Nurse Portal introduces a new article series chronicling one hospital peer's journey on the way to readiness. In this first installment, Rockingham Memorial Hospital (Harrisonburg, VA) shares how the 238-bed Client/Server health care organization is approaching the initial set of standards, implementation specifications, and EHR certification criteria in order to meet the government's Meaningful Use objectives.


At Rockingham Memorial Hospital, getting ready for ARRA has encompassed an interdisciplinary, strategic approach. This major initiative started with the formation of a committee composed of key stakeholders—the Meaningful Use Steering Team (MUST). The primary purpose of MUST was to determine the hospital's level of readiness for both acute care and ambulatory services. Eventually, the committee would go on to develop and implement a hospital-wide strategy.

The committee was brought together by leadership from Mike Rozmus, CIO, and Robert Underwood, MD, CMIO. They wished to have representation on the committee from across hospital disciplines, and they invited leaders from pharmacy, laboratory, nursing, medical staff, quality and patient safety, information systems, decision support, health information management, and finance.

These members were called upon to take a very active role. "As outlined in our charter, MUST committee members are in charge of guiding the development of project plans and overseeing the progress and reporting of Meaningful Use metrics," explains Rozmus. "Our committee members should be recognized for their very hard work in establishing strategic project timelines in order to effectively address Meaningful Use and maximize HITECH opportunities with the long-term goal of meeting the Stage I, II, and III objectives."

MUST committee members identified multiple phases for the initiative, which includes five stages: Education, Readiness Assessment/Gap Analysis, Project Roadmap/Strategy, Detailed Project Planning, and Project Initiation/Execution Oversight. Rockingham has already completed its first phase, which started in January, and is now embarking on the second phase.

Providers have been receiving ample training to support their efforts, explains Underwood. "Through a series of Webinars, we educated our team members on Meaningful Use objectives, metrics, and compliance," he says. "The Webinars, given by professional organizations such as Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) and The Advisory Board Company, gave our members a solid foundation and got us up to speed for phase two."

After making great progress in their beginning phases, Rockingham's Meaningful Use initiative was temporarily placed on hold for a few months due to the opening of a brand new, state-of-the-art hospital and health campus. During this time, Rozmus and Underwood continued to actively track regulatory changes, clarifications, and the development of additional objectives that could impact the course of action.

Now that the new facilities are up, the committee is getting excited to continue their efforts. According to one active MUST member, Natalie Beiler, IS manager of clinical applications: "We just began resuming our monthly MUST meetings, so we are now refocusing on the steps necessary to finalize our phase two efforts, while also preparing for phase three. We look forward to continuing our efforts and sharing our latest news with the MEDITECH community in the months ahead."