As part of HHS' Million Hearts initiative, three vendors have created EHR optimization guides through the ONC to help healthcare professionals use their EHR systems to identify and treat patients at risk for heart attacks, strokes and other cardiovascular events.
The ONC released the guides from Allscripts, Cerner and NextGen Healthcare. The guides instruct providers on how to use EHRs for care coordination and clinical quality measures related to the Million Hearts initiative. Specifically, the guides show how to find, use and improve EHR data on aspirin therapy, blood pressure control, cholesterol management and smoking cessation.
These three vendors were the first to respond to ONC's nationwide "Call to Action" inviting vendors to develop vendor-specific guides on how to extract patient-level data on clinical measures in the Million Hearts initiatives.
"We would like to encourage all EHR vendors to collaborate with ONC on developing additional Million Hearts EHR Optimization Guides," writes Thomas Mason, MD, CMO of ONC, in a blog post announcing the publication of the guides.
Million Hearts aims to prevent one million heart attacks and strokes in the United States by 2017 by improving access to care, improving care quality, dedicating clinical attention to preventing heart attacks and strokes, encouraging heart-healthy lifestyles and improving medication prescription and adherence.
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