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The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is relaxing its timetable for health-care providers to meet stricter standards for "meaningful use" of electronic health records, a move HHS says is intended to speed and ease adoption of health IT.

Doctors and hospitals that began participating in Medicare EHR incentive programs this year have another year, until 2014, to meet the second stage of standards for meaningful use, HHS said in an announcement released this week. Providers that adopt EHRs in 2012 would continue to have until 2014 to meet Stage 2 meaningful-use standards.

Health-care providers whose EHRs meet meaningful-use standards are eligible for up to $44,000 in Medicare incentives and $63,750 in Medicaid incentives, so meeting those standards is critical. But health IT organizations and industry professionals have urged for several months that the deadline for meeting tougher, Stage 2 meaningful-use standards be pushed back to 2014. Dr. Farzad Mostashari, the national coordinator for health IT, recently agreed with those recommendations.

The HHS-announced delay also presumably gives Mostashari's office more time to settle on its requirements for Stage 2 meaningful-use standards.

HHS also intends to offer education and training to doctors and hospitals that have registered for EHR incentive programs through Medicare and Medicaid--but have not yet achieved meaningful use. The outreach will complement the efforts of regional extension centers, local nonprofit groups that help smaller practices and hospitals navigate the world of health IT, HHS said.