VM’s Cover Topic this month is broad and complex—and very, very important to all eyecare professionals.

In his presentation and description of the current climate of electronic health records, Meaningful Use, the advent of health information exchanges and the (soon) arrival of eyecare provider registries, VM’s senior editor, John Sailer, does a thorough and careful job to outline the forces that are coming together to change the way ECPs are going to be evaluated in the “new” health care delivery and reimbursement environment.

This way is, simply put, “outcomes measurement.” It is a system that will evaluate—on a series of data points and records still to be fully defined—which will absolutely start to correlate with reumbursement policies from major insurers (government as well as private entity).

And it is a far cry from the traditional ‘fee-for-service’ model that has driven most pricing models for the majority of practitioners. The messages of this report?

To postpone paying active attention to EHRs, investing in and learning to manage the right systems for your practice is a mistake.

To put off learning about ECP registries is a mistake.

To procrastinate learning about how technologies can work for you is also… yep, you got it.

We hope this story will be a primer for you. Let us know your thoughts.

VM continues its year-long initiative on the Millennial Project this month, with a focus on Millennial Women in this issue. We are putting the spotlight on this important, influential consumer segment, along with the colleagues at our sister publication, 20/20, which is also examining Millennials via their GenEYE coverage throughout the year.

We’ll be in touch soon about exciting Millennial Project Live Events. And, remember, check out the new VisionMonday.com/MillennialProject for a full range of online resources, clips, stats and tools that can help you and your practice team better understand how you can reach, teach and engage.

maxelrad@jobson.com