HITECH Act meaningful use (2011)
The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act let CMS make electronic health record incentive payments to hospitals and doctors — but only if they demonstrated 'meaningful use' of the technology, defined as specific measurable stages of adoption.
EHR adoption jumped from under 20% to over 80% of hospitals within a few years as providers chased incentive payments.
Showed CMS could drive technology adoption by tying payments to demonstrated use — a structure ACCESS now applies to health outcomes rather than tech adoption.
ACCESS is the end of that decade-long transition: Medicare no longer pays for using technology, it pays for the health results the technology produces.
