Outpatient Care

Meaningful use places a particular importance on vital statistics including blood pressure, height, weight, pulse, respiration, and pulse oximetry (oxygenation of the blood). In some settings it has not been considered necessary to collect all these details, or maybe they weren’t done on every visit. Meaningful use with limited exceptions requires their collection on every new encounter with the patient. The motivating factor for collecting this information routinely is its strong correlation with preventing acute or trauma incidents.

A visit to a dermatologist who collects those vitals could prevent a trip to the ER if an undiagnosed and problematically high blood pressure or other strong risk factor is found. Each interaction with a medical professional becomes a basic screening for the most widespread risk factors. When performed on a large scale, this can reduce costs in the system as a whole and increase positive outcomes for patients. Those two factors are really the motivations that brought about meaningful use.