Health IT Research & Analysis
Datasets

EHR Products Used for Meaningful Use Attestation

Date Range

April, 2011 – September, 2017

Last Updated

January 2019

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The Medicare Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Program provides incentives to eligible clinicians and hospitals to adopt electronic health records. This dataset combines meaningful use attestations from the Medicare EHR Incentive Program and certified health IT product data from the ONC Certified Health IT Product List (CHPL) to identify the unique vendors, products, and product types of each certified health IT product used to attest to meaningful use. The dataset also includes important provider-specific data, related to the provider’s participation and status in the program, unique provider identifiers, and other characteristics unique to each provider, like geography and provider type.

Data FieldData Description
NPINational Provider Identifier // The national provider identifier (NPI) is issued to every ambulatory and inpatient provider. It is a unique identifier.
CCNCMS Certified Number // The CCN is a unique identifier for health care facilities certified to participate in federal health care programs. Facilities can include hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, federally qualified health centers, etc.
Provider_TypeType of Health Care Provider // This data set includes attestations from two provider groups: eligible professionals (EP) and eligible hospitals (Hospital).
Business_State_TerritoryU.S. State or Territorial Location of Provider // The location of the practice or hospital in which the provider is located. This data is submitted as part of the provider’s attestation.
ZIPZIP code where hospital or health care professional practice is located. // The ZIP code is a unique geographic identifier that can be used to determine metropolitan status and can be linked to county level codes.
SpecialtyClinical Specialty of Health Care Provider // Clinical specialty data is only provided for eligible professionals (EP). Hospital observations within this data set should not have data for this variable.
Hospital_TypeType of hospital. // For hospitals included in the data, a hospital is designated as a General or Critical Access hospital. A Critical Access hospital is a hospital with less than 25 beds and 35 miles away from any other general or Critical Access hospital. A General hospital are all other hospitals. Only General and Critical Access hospitals are eligible to receive incentive payments through the Medicare EHR Incentive Program.
Program_TypeCMS Incentive Program in which Provider is Registered // Registrations will be listed as Medicare or Medicare/Medicaid.
Program_YearCMS EHR Incentive Program Year in which Provider Attested to Meaningful Use // The Medicare EHR Incentive Program began in 2011.
Provider_Stage_NumberStage of Meaningful Use Attestation // There are three stages over the life of Meaningful Use. Stage 2 began in 2014. Only stage 1 and stage 2 appear in this data set.
Payment_YearCMS EHR Incentive Program Payment Year for Provider // This variable reflects the number of years since the provider started participation in the meaningful use program, with the first year being counted as 1.
Attestation_MonthMonth in which Provider Attested to Meaningful Use of Product // Calendar month in which provider submitted a meaningful use attestation to the Medicare EHR Incentive Program. Combine this variable with the Attestation Year variable to get the date of the provider’s attestation.
Attestation_YearYear in which Provider Attested to Meaningful Use of Product // Calendar year in which provider submitted a meaningful use attestation to the Medicare EHR Incentive Program. Combine this variable with the Attestation Month variable to get the date of the provider’s attestation.
MU_Definition_2014Meaningful Use Definition of EHR Product for Program Year 2014 // There are three definintions of stage 1 of meaningful use: 2011, 2013 and 2014. There is one definition of stage 2 of meaningful use: 2014.
Stage_2_Scheduled_2014Provider’s Scheduled Meaningful Use Stage 2 Status for Program Year 2014 // The provider is either scheduled for stage 2 of meaningful use in 2014 (1), or the provider is not scheduled (0).
EHR_Certification_NumberElectronic Health Record (EHR) Certification Number // Unique identification number associated with different combinations of EHR products.
EHR_Product_CHP_IdElectronic Health Record (EHR) Product Certified Health IT Product List (CHPL) Identification Number // The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) Certification Program issues an unique identification number for each health product certified by the program.
Vendor_NameElectronic Health Record (EHR) Vendor Name // Company name of the EHR vendor who developed the product certified for meaningful use attestation.
EHR_Product_NameElectronic Health Record (EHR) Product Name // Unique name of EHR product used for meaningful use attestation.
EHR_Product_VersionElectronic Health Record (EHR) Product Version // Unique version number of a certified product.
Product_ClassificationElectronic Health Record (EHR) Product Classification // An EHR product can have two possible classifications: complete or modular. Complete products meet all the meaningful use requirements for the practice setting and certification edition for which the product was certified. Modular products meet one or more, but not all of the MU requirements for the practice setting and certification ediction for which the product was certified.
Product_SettingElectronic Health Record (EHR) Product Setting // An EHR product can be certified for two distinct practice settings: ambulatory care settings (doctor’s offices, clinics, etc.) and inpatient care settings (hospitals, long-term care facilities, etc.).
Product_Certification_Edition_YrElectronic Health Record (EHR) Product Certification Edition Year // An EHR product can be certified under two distinct editions: 2011 certification edition and 2014 certification edition.
Attestation_IDUnique Identification Number for each Meaningful Use Attestation // This variable has been discontinued. You can use the provider unique identifiers, NPI for EPs and CCN for hospitals, to identify unique providers and the program years for each unique provider to track attestations for each provider.

This dataset merges attestation data from the Medicare EHR Incentive Program with certified EHR product information from ONC’s Certified Health IT Product List (CHPL). The Medicare EHR Incentive Program provides incentive payments to eligible providers as they adopt, implement, upgrade, or demonstrate meaningful use of certified EHR technology. The CHPL provides the authoritative, comprehensive listing of certified health IT products that have been tested under the ONC Certification Program. Because the collection and preparation of this data takes considerable time and effort, there is a lag of about two months between the date of publication and the content presented within it. Note that the data may fluctuate on a month-to-month basis as records are validated and the data updated. The complete dataset exceeds 1 million rows of data, so, if loaded in Excel software, any data beyond a million rows will be deprecated. A statistical or other software that can load a file of this size is recommended to analyze the complete dataset. The data, however, are also provided separately for program years of the EHR Incentive Program (2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016).