meaningful use

The Meaningful Use programs were designed to nudge hospitals and physicians, with carrots and sticks, to digitizing medical records and other aspects of care.

Meaningful use refers to not just having electronic health records (EHR), but using them in a useful way for patients.

Not all individuals have the same illnesses, and even for the same chronic diseases, how any patient is affected varies. In determining payments for care, Medicare introduced modifiers to gauge and report on the associated severity of illness.