While the nation has been abuzz with healthcare reform talk lately, some big progress is being made on the healthcare IT front. The policy group advising the U.S. health department on the criteria healthcare providers must meet to qualify for more than $20 billion of stimulus rewards for using e-health systems has completed an important chunk of its work.Last week, the Health Information Technology Policy Committee reached a consensus on the "meaningful use" definition it recommends used to set requirements for what healthcare providers will need to do with their e-health systems, such as electronic health records, in order to qualify for government financial incentives starting in 2011.

The HIT Policy Committee is one of two panels (the other is the HIT Standards Committee) advising President Obama's health IT czar, Dr. David Blumenthal, and U.S. secretary of health Kathy Sebelius on national goals and details related to health IT adoption programs. The biggest health IT program of course is the $20-plus billion HITECH portions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act signed into law in February.

Since the spring, the HIT Policy Committee has been hammering out drafts of what it recommends for the all-important "meaningful use" definition that will be used to judge whether healthcare providers receive the government rewards for their e-health achievements. The panel issued a draft of its recommendation in June, and the health department been collecting public comments over the last several weeks. The newest version of these recommendations issued last week reflect some tweaking by the panel based on the feedback they've been getting.

One of the big changes is in computerized physician order entry requirements. Earlier recommendations had required all doctor orders, like drugs, to happen via CPOE by 2011. But the new requirements have hospitals needing to generate 10% of their orders through CPOE by 2011.

Hopefully, the new relaxed timeline for some of these criteria should be a help to healthcare providers just starting up with these technologies, especially considering it'll take a year or more to get many of these systems implemented.

Still, the department of health and human services still needs to approve the panel's recommendation. An interim rule is expected from HHS by the end of the year.

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