Stimulus Money Tapped to Spur EHR Growth
$1.2 Billion Slated for HITECH Priority Grant Programs
By News Staff
Nearly $1.2 billion soon will be available to help the nation’s hospitals, physicians and other health care professionals purchase and use electronic health records, or EHRs, according to an Aug. 20 announcement from Vice President Joe Biden. Money from the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health, or HITECH, Act priority grant programs, which are funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, will start flowing in 2010.
“With electronic health records, we are making health care safer, we’re making it more efficient, we’re making you healthier, and we’re saving money along the way,” said Biden in the announcement. “These are four necessities we need for health care in the 21st century.”
The money will be divided between two programs.
- $598 million has been set aside to establish the Health Information Technology Extension Program, which will allow about 70 health IT regional extension centers to offer technical assistance and guidance to support health care professionals using EHRs.
- $564 million will fund the State Health Information Exchange Cooperative Agreement Program, an initiative designed to help states and other entities establish health information exchange capacity among hospitals and health care professionals.
According to David Blumenthal, M.D., M.P.P., the national coordinator for health IT, the rollout of the programs “represents a critical step forward in laying the groundwork for meaningful use of EHRs.”
“Together, the grants will offer much-needed local and regional assistance and technical support to providers while enabling coordination and alignment within and among states, ultimately allowing information to follow patients anywhere within the health care system,” Blumenthal said in an Aug. 20 update e-mailed to health IT stakeholders and posted on the HHS Web site.
Information about the HITECH priority grants program and application requirements is available online from HHS
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1 comment
Outstanding, timely and informative information!
The HITECH Grants will produce the most profound advancement in health information, and I believe in ultimately the delivery of personal health care, in mankind’s history. This platform will move us from a fragmented electronic structure for financial transactions to the breath-taking new vista of disease prevention and management.
I encourage all of your HIT readers to be aggressive and involved participants in networking to energize this transformation with the regional organizations which will burst forth in the next 18 months.
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