Geary Community Hospital is one of about 100 hospitals out of 1,200 to complete meaningful use stage two.

Dr. Joseph Stratton, CEO explained that the meaningful use program encourages and incentivizes hospitals to acquire electronic health records in three separate stages.

GCH completed stage one last year and this year completed stage two, which was more difficult according to Stratton.

“The requirements in meaningful use two were what we call, computer physician order of entry. Where all of the physicians have to begin to use the computer instead of putting that stubby pencil on paper to write an order for a patient, they have to do it electronically,” says Stratton.

The hospital was also required to create a patient portal, where patients can sign up to see their medical records online.

By completing stage two the hospital will receive approximately $690,000 from medicaid and medicare sometime in early December. Stratton said that the money will go into the hospitals general fund and has already been budgeted for.