Clinicians Collaborate with I.T. to Drive Fauquier to Meaningful Use

Fauquier Health System (Warrenton, VA), was recently awarded $1.6 million for meeting the Stage 1 Meaningful Use provisions. We sat down with Fauquier's Chief Information Officer, Donna Staton, and Manager of Clinical Information Systems, Charlotte Robey, MS, RN, to discuss their roles in Fauquier's attestation as well as offer tips for customers preparing for Stage 1 Meaningful Use.

MEDITECH: First off, congratulations on being one of the first hospitals in Virginia to attest! What does this recognition mean to Fauquier?

Staton: Thanks! Achieving Meaningful Use was an organizational initiative, from our clinicians and staff, all the way up to the Board. We are very proud of our ability to meet the government standards in quality care delivery.

MEDITECH: How did you get your clinicians to buy into Meaningful Use? Did you have to make any changes to your clinicians' workflows?

Staton: We started by stressing what Meaningful Use meant for improved patient safety, quality, and financially to the organization. To drive the point home, we appointed Charlotte to lead Fauquier's Meaningful Use project. Her clinical background helped to identity what functionality needed to be rolled out to meet each measure, and we implemented these changes based on her observations.

Robey: In addition, we added Meaningful Use as a standard agenda item for our Physician Informatics Committee. This helped to foster support and ensured engagement as we moved through the change management process.

MEDITECH: Please describe your ARRA software update processes.

Robey: I worked closely with our MEDITECH ARRA Coordinator, Dianne Moniz, throughout the ARRA Priority Pack update. She walked us through the update, and was always available to answer questions about the new functionality. In addition, I found MEDITECH's Webinars on quality measures were vital in understanding how to meet the Meaningful Use reporting requirements.

Staton: We also heavily relied on MEDITECH's Best Practices, which provided guidance to optimize our solution and meet the measures. We were able to implement MEDITECH's suggestions in a manner that fit with our workflow.

MEDITECH: What is next for Fauquier? How are you gearing up for Stage 2?

Robey: We are currently in the midst of the Stage 1 attestation period for our physician practices. Our providers use MEDITECH's ambulatory solution, and it was an easy transition for me to assume a project management role for the Eligible Provider attestation. The project management experience is very similar in scope to the acute care side, with the hospital and ambulatory environments sharing many of the Stage 1 requirements.

I recently participated in a MEDITECH focus group addressing the proposed Stage 2 objective requiring providers to document care team members. Customers gave MEDITECH feedback on the most logical area in the system to add this functionality, and MEDITECH may be able to take this information to CMS in the form of draft measure feedback to help shape the final rulemaking. MEDITECH did a great job preparing us for Stage 1, and we appreciate their early efforts in preparation for Stage 2.