The chiropractic industry, like other health-related sectors, is searching for more innovative ways to improve patient engagement and care. This includes adopting EHR systems and other new technologies such as e-prescribing, mobile devices and cloud computing.

While the chiropractic industry is busy looking for new methods of administering care, the federal government set up an incentive program for providers to adopt EHR software and meet meaningful use requirements. There are specific objectives that must be met before a chiropractor can achieve monetary rewards. These include 15 core measures and an additional five out of 10 menu set items.

The American Chiropractic Association set out the necessary objectives that chiropractors need to meet to qualify for federal incentives. First off, a medical professional must utilize a computerized provider order entry form when ordering medications for more than 30 percent of patients. This does not include all medications or refills for a particular patient. However, it does state that at least one medication order per patient must be filled out through the computerized provider order entry.

Also, more than 40 percent of all assigned prescriptions must be sent electronically through the use of certified EHR software. The only exclusion is for any prescriber who writes fewer than 100 prescriptions over the reporting period.

While it is clear that the federal government will not back down on mandating the use of EHR systems, will this new technology be able to handle the wide variety of work seen in a chiropractic office?

"True EHR systems differ from mere digital note-taking systems. True EHR contains all the records of a patient – including radiology and lab reports or narrative reports generated by outside specialists. In addition, true EHR can organize pieces of data in ways that improve patient care and help a doctor manage an entire population of patients," Rebecca Jones wrote in an article for the news source.

While meeting meaningful use requirements is a noble goal in the industry's quest to improve population health, chiropractors should adopt EHR software in order to improve the lives of the patients they see on a daily basis.