| State HIE, REC Recipients for Health ITA complete listing of the state HIE, REC and job training grant recipients is as follows: State HIE Awards: | State HIE Awardee | Award Amount | | Alabama Medicaid Agency | $10,564,789 | | Arizona Governor’s Office of Economic Recovery | $9,377,000 | | Arkansas Dept of Finance and Administration | $7,909,401 | | California Health and Human Services Agency | $38,752,536 | | Colorado Regional Health Information Organization | $9,175,777 | | Delaware Health Information Network | $4,680,284 | | Government of the District of Columbia | $5,189,709 | | Georgia Department of Community Health | $13,003,003 | | Office of the Governor (Guam) | $1,600,000 | | The Hawaii Health Information Exchange | $5,602,318 | | Illinois Department of Health care and Family Services | $18,837,639 | | Kansas Health Information Exchange Project | $9,010,066 | | Cabinet for Health and Family Services (Kentucky) | $9,750,000 | | State of Maine/Governor’s Office of Health Policy & Finance | $6,599,401 | | Massachusetts Technology Park Corporation | $10,599,719 | | Michigan Department of Health | $14,993,085 | | Minnesota Department of Health | $9,622,000 | | Missouri Depart of Social Services | $13,765,040 | | Nevada Department of Health and Human Services | $6,133,426 | | New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services | $5,457,856 | | Lovelace Clinic Foundation, New Mexico | $7,070,441 | | New York eHealth Collaborative Inc. | $22,364,782 | | Commonwealth of the NMI, Department of Public Health | $800,000 | | North Carolina Department of State Treasurer | $12,950,860 | | Ohio Health Information Partnership LLC | $14,872,199 | | Oklahoma Health Care Authority | $8,883,741 | | Pacific Ecommerce Development Corporation (American Samoa) | $600,000 | | State of Oregon | $8,579,992 | | Governor’s Office of Health Care Reform Commonwealth of Pennsylvania | $17,140,446 | | Oticina del Gobernador La Fortaeza (Puerto Rico) | $7,770,980 | | Rhode Island Quality Institute | $5,280,000 | | State of Tennessee | $11,664,580 | | Utah Department of Health | $6,296,705 | | Vermont Department of Human Services | $5,034,328 | | Virgin Islands Department of Health | $1,000,000 | | Virginia Department of Health | $11,613,537 | | Health Care Authority (Washington) | $11,300,000 | | West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources | $7,819,000 | | Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services | $9,441,000 | | Office of the Governor (Wyoming) | $4,873,000 | | Total Award Amount | $385,978,640 |
Regional Extension Center Awards: | RECs Awardee | Award Amount | | Altarum Institute, Michigan | $19,619,990 | | Arkansas Foundation For Medical Care | $7,400,000 | | CIMRO of Nebraska | $6,647,371 | | Colorado RHIO | $12,475,000 | | District of Columbia Primary Care Association | $5,488,437 | | Fund for Public Health New York | $21,754,010 | | Greater Cincinnati HealthBridge (Ohio-Kentucky) | $9,738,000 | | Health Choice Network, Inc.,Florida | $8,500,000 | | HealthInsight, Utah-Nevada | $6,917,783 | | Iowa IFMC | $5,508,019 | | Kansas Foundation for Medical Care Inc. | $7,000,000 | | Key Health Alliance (Stratis Health), Minnesota – North Dakota | $19,000,000 | | Lovelace Clinic, New Mexico | $6,175,000 | | Massachusetts Technology Park Cooperation | $13,433,107 | | MetaStar, Inc, Wisconsin | $9,125,000 | | Morehouse School of Medicine, Inc., Georgia | $19,521,542 | | New York eHealth Collaborative (NYeC) | $26,534,999 | | University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill | $13,569,169 | | Northern California Regional Extension Center | $17,286,081 | | Northern Illinois University | $7,546,000 | | Northwestern University | $7,649,533 | | OCHIN Inc. (Primary), Oregon | $13,201,499 | | Ohio Health Information Partnership | $28,500,000 | | Oklahoma Foundation for Medical Quality, Inc. | $5,331,685 | | Purdue University | $12,000,000 | | Qsource (Tennessee) | $7,256,155 | | Qualis Health, Washington – Idaho | $12,846,482 | | Rhode Island Quality Institute | $6,000,000 | | Southern California Regional Extension Center | $13,961,339 | | Vermont Information Technology Leaders, Inc. | $6,762,080 | | VHQC and the Center for Innovative Technology, for The Virginia Consortium | $12,425,000 | | West Virginia Health Improvement Institute Inc. | $6,000,000 | | Total Award Amount | $375,173,281 |
HHS Secretary Sebelius Announces Plans to Establish Health IT “Beacon Communities”$235 million set aside to fund nationwide Beacon Community Program HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Dr. David Blumenthal, HHS’ National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, announced today plans to make available $235 million to support an innovative Beacon Community Program. The program will work to accelerate and demonstrate the ability of health information technology to transform local health care systems, and improve the lives of Americans and the performance of the health care providers who serve them. The Beacon Community Program will include $220 million in grants to build and strengthen health IT infrastructure and health information exchange capabilities, including strong privacy and security measures for data exchange, within 15 communities. An additional $15 million will be provided for technical assistance to the communities and to evaluate the success of the program. “Health information technology will make our health care system more efficient and improve care for every American,” Secretary Sebelius said. “The Beacon Community Program is a critical step forward as we work to expand the use of health information technology in hospitals and doctor’s offices across the country.” Funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the Beacon Community Program will take communities at the cutting edge of electronic health record (EHR) adoption and health information exchange and push them to a new level of health care quality and efficiency. The program will establish cooperative agreements with communities to build and strengthen their health IT infrastructure and health information exchange capabilities to achieve measurable improvements in health care quality, safety, efficiency, and population health. The resulting experience will inform efforts throughout the United States to support the meaningful use of EHRs, the primary goal of the federal government’s new health IT initiative. “We recognize that better health care does not come solely from the adoption of technology itself but through the ongoing private and secure exchange and use of health information to provide the best possible information at the point of patient care,” said Dr. Blumenthal. Cooperative agreements will be awarded to 15 qualified non-profit organizations or government entities representing diverse geographic areas, including rural and under-served communities. To qualify for the Beacon Community Program, applicants are expected to: - Build off of existing health IT infrastructure and exchange to demonstrate care and cost savings;
- Have rates of EHR adoption that are significantly higher than published national estimates; and,
- Coordinate with recently announced Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) programs for Regional Extension Centers and State Health Information Exchange to develop and disseminate best practices for adoption and meaningful use of EHRs to support national goals for widespread use of health IT.
“The Beacon Community Program will help provide more hard evidence that health IT exchange can make a significant and positive difference in the delivery and value of care,” stated Dr. Blumenthal. Information about cooperative agreement applications will be available shortly at http://HealthIT.HHS.gov/. For more information about the implementation of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act programs in the US Department of Health and Human Services, please see: http://www.hhs.gov/recovery.  Hawaii Health Information The HITECH Foundation for Information Exchange
November 12, 2009  Dr. David Blumenthal, National Coordinator for Health Information Technology A Message from Dr. David Blumenthal, National Coordinator for Health Information Technology As the many activities mandated by the HITECH Act move forward, I want to take a moment to share my vision of the overarching goal and some of its implications. Our goal, above all else, is to make care better for patients, and to make it patient-centered. Information policy and health IT policy should serve that goal. A key premise: information should follow the patient, and artificial obstacles – technical, business related, bureaucratic – should not get in the way. As a doctor, I have many times wanted access to data that I knew were buried in the computers or paper records of another health system across town. Neither my care nor my patients were well served in those instances. That is what we must get beyond. That is the goal we will pursue, and it will inform all our policy choices now and going forward. This means that information exchange must cross institutional and business boundaries. Because that is what patients need. Exchange within business groups will not be sufficient – the goal is to have information flow seamlessly and effortlessly to every nook and cranny of our health system, when and where it is needed, just like the blood within our arteries and veins meets our bodies’ vital needs. If we are to reap the benefit of information exchange, Americans must also be assured that the most advanced technology and proven business practices will be employed to secure the privacy and security of their personal health information, both within and across electronic systems, and that persons and organizations who hold personal health data are trustworthy custodians of the information. We must have comprehensive, clear, and sustainable policies that strengthen existing protections, fill gaps as they emerge, fortify new opportunities for patients’ access to and control of their information, and align with evolving technologies. I will devote a separate letter to this critical issue and the many activities mandated by the HITECH Act that we are developing.
On the question of exchange, however, the HITECH Act is pretty specific about eliminating inappropriate barriers. It squarely tackles the commercial barriers. The HITECH Act calls for the “development of a nationwide health information technology infrastructure that allows for the electronic use and exchange of information and that…promotes a more effective marketplace, greater competition…[and] increased consumer choice” among other goals. (Section 3001(b)) This means we cannot support arrangements that restrict the secure, private exchange of information required for patient care across provider or network boundaries. Some of these arrangements may improve care for those inside their walls. But ultimately, they have the potential to carve the nation up into disconnected silos of information, and thus, to undermine the vision of a secure, interoperable, nationwide health information infrastructure, which the law requires us to establish. Consumers, patients and their caretakers should never feel locked into a single health system or exchange arrangement because it does not permit or encourage the sharing of information. It tackles the economic barriers. The HITECH Act incentives for providers and hospitals are powerful tools. While the official definition of “Meaningful Use” won’t be finalized until next year, the HITECH Act specifically highlights “information exchange” as one requirement for the incentives. It tackles the technical barriers. The HITECH Act focuses on “interoperability” or “interoperable products.” In plain English, this means that our policies, programs, and incentives must aim for electronic health record (EHR) software and systems that can share information with different EHRs and networks so that information can follow patients wherever they go. And to build the pipelines to carry this information, HHS is directed to invest in the infrastructure to “support the nationwide electronic exchange and use of health information …including connecting health information exchanges…” (Section 3011) This means we will work with all our partners in the health and IT industries and with organizations that are committed to information sharing to develop the technologies and policies that can help us deliver information securely, privately, and accurately to whomever needs to see it on behalf of the patient’s health. We must ensure interoperability for the future. It provides building blocks for information exchange across jurisdictions. The grants for states and state-designated entities in Section 3013 – which will total $564 million – target information exchange across boundaries, not only within each state but explicitly as part of a nationwide framework. We will start announcing the awards this winter. These grantees’ activities must support interoperability that lets patient data follow the patient across political and geographic boundaries. The grantees will be our partners in building the nationwide infrastructure mentioned previously. In short, the HITECH Act not only authorizes but requires us to mobilize all our policies, programs, and incentives to give the American people the patient-centric care they deserve and expect. I look forward to engaging all our partners in this unique opportunity. Regards, David Blumenthal, M.D., M.P.P.
National Coordinator for Health Information Technology
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) encourages you to share this information as we work together to enhance the quality, safety and value of care and the health of all Americans through the use of electronic health records and health information technology. For more information and to receive regular updates from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, please subscribe to our Health IT News list. Under Construction. Feel free to send comments to info@hhie.org | | |
