EHR Adoption Grants Awarded
Today Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced the awarding of nearly $800 million in grants to help states and health care providers advance the adoption and meaningful use of health information technology. Funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, $386 million will promote health information exchange at the state level, while $375 million will support the development of regional extension centers (RECs) that will aid health professionals as they work to implement and use health information technology (health IT).
In my role as National Coordinator for Health IT, I have the opportunity to regularly meet health care colleagues who are dedicated to, and passionate about, health IT as a tool to improve the care they deliver to their patients. On this blog, I’m frequently motivated by your spirit of collaboration and desire to get involved. Today’s grant awards represent opportunities to formalize some of these partnerships and create programs with goals we will collectively work towards.
$368 million of the awards announced today will give 40 states and qualified State Designated Entities the resources to rapidly build capacity for exchanging health information among and between health care professionals and hospitals. As they establish and implement appropriate governance, policies, and network service, they will be sharing and leveraging best practices and working together – within and across states. Likewise, the 32 REC recipients of $375 million in funds will begin to establish a network of non-profit organizations that will provide training and support services to assist doctors, hospitals, and other health care professionals in the adoption and meaningful use of EHR systems. These organizations will work collaboratively within the communities they serve to provide support to priority primary care providers in virtually every region of the country. Additional awards for both these programs will be announced in the next two months.
I congratulate each grant recipient and speak for all of us at ONC in saying we look forward to working together to build a healthier America.
ONC’s ability to simultaneously design, create and award programs is impressive and reminds me of the same skills that many of us use when actually implementing complex health care systems – it is a little bit like building a plane while it is flying.
So often I hear people who think of the various programs or funding streams as a “carrot” or even a “stick” to adopt health IT but I believe that the programs and the $ are simply an additional resource on a much larger project. They are not the goal and will do little to motivate change. The real motivator’s for those systems that have already adopted health IT are often classic ROI but for many providers, consumers what brings about real change are more intrinsic and driven by the belief (interest and purpose) that health IT will help us all achieve high quality, safe, effective, cost efficient, and confidential patient centered care.
Now if only we could encourage communities (providers, payers, patients) to work collaboratively and capture some of the cost savings (reduced testing, improved safety) that these systems can generate and share them with the providers who make the changes. This linkage between payment reform and health IT is the missing piece in the equation and helps explain why large systems like Kaiser, Group Health Coop, VA and others were the first to implement them without any government subsidy. They are able to keep the savings in house at the same time they are able to improve quality and focus on both the provider and the patients needs.
I love the funding movements coming from the ONCHIT and I believe these will facilitate a smoother, faster, and more efficient adoption of HIT among providers. My only concern regarding these grants is that they are targeted directly at primary care providers according to all the announcements. I am afraid that specialists may need more assistance and attention than they have received so far. In fact, if you review the criteria for meaningful use it’s evident that specialists were minimally considered when these were created. Currently, there is a deficit of appropriate consideration for the specialists and they need more attention moving forward if all providers are to achieve connectivity. You cannot stop interoperability at primary care and hospitals; the movement must be all-inclusive to meet the original objective.
This is great news. Our health care system is on a significant decline and this is a great step to push it back up!
It is beyond distasteful that money is being is being tossed around for products that are not safety tested. The escalation in grant awards are shameful, the healthcare system is broken. Handing out money for this is like putting “Bondo” on clunkers before they meet the trash heap cash for clunkers compacter. Somebody eventually has to scrape the hardened and gloss painted putty off the inside of the compacting appliance. Let me guess who that will be…
I got it! Another pop-up 501 C corporation. They should be certified too.
Congratulations for attempting to raise the bar for health information technology. In my opinion there is one factoid that continues to be abused. This months Patient Safety and Quality Healthcare magazine and e-newsletter (produced by AHRQ) states that “Physicians adopting and meaningfully using a certified EHR will be reimbursed $44,000″. They will be reimbursed UP TO $44 K over five years. In reality they will be reimbursed 75% of allowable Medicare part B claims UP TO $44 K. At most they can get $18 in the first year if they bill Medicare $24 K!
Every EHR vendor has also promoted the idea that an eligible doc who adopts a certified EHR and demonstrated meaningful use will automatically get $44. This is simply not true and needs to be corrected by ONC, HHS, etc……Bob
Thanks for your feedback. This is an interesting discussion, and it demonstrates some of the challenges inherent to the task before us: knowledgeable professionals who share a commitment to the meaningful use of EHRs with differing opinions about how to achieve our common goal. I am confident that the resources being allocated to the RECs and State HIEs will allow us to begin identifying best practices and building consensus and will, ultimately, improve American health care by facilitating the nationwide adoption of EHRs.