Posts Tagged ‘Health Information Technology’

Ohio Regional Extension Centers (REC) Partners

April 15th, 2010

Regional Partners for Ohio State Health Information Technology Initiatives

Governor Ted Strickland announced that seven regional sites across Ohio will receive a total of $26.8 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) resources to assist in the implementation of the state’s health information technology initiative. The resources are a portion of Ohio’s total $43 million ARRA award for the Ohio Health Information Partnership (OHIP), the non-profit entity designated by Strickland to lead the implementation of health information technology in Ohio.

Regional Partners Announced :

Akron Regional Hospital Association will receive $3,928,500 to assist 873 primary care physicians.

Case Western Reserve University will receive $7,942,500 to assist 1,765 primary care physicians.

Central Ohio Health Information Exchange (COHIE) will receive $6,084,000 to assist 1,352 primary care physicians.

Greater Dayton Area Health Information Network (GDAHA) will receive $2,898,000 to assist 644 primary care physicians.

Hospital Council of Northwest Ohio will receive $2,875,500 to assist 639 primary care physicians.

Northeast Ohio (NEO) HealthForce will receive $1,453,500 to assist 323 primary care physicians.

Ohio University will receive $1,818,000 to assist 404 primary care physicians.

Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine has received $7,942,500 in federal stimulus funds from the Ohio Health Information Partnership (OHIP), the state designated entity for health information exchange development. The funding positions the School of Medicine as a regional extension center (REC). The designation will allow the school to help 1,765 health care providers in Lorain, Cuyahoga, Lake, Geauga and Ashtabula counties advance the use of health information technology (HIT) in their practices.

“This is great news for Case Western Reserve School of Medicine’s facilities and patients in northeast Ohio,” said U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown. “Health information technology helps reduce medical errors and improves patient care. By helping doctors and nurses consult with one another through technology, we will improve the quality of medical care offered across our state – particularly in rural areas. And by helping medical facilities adopt new information technologies, we will reduce medical errors and lower health costs.”

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Nationwide Beacon Community Program for Health Information Exchange

December 6th, 2009

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 underserved 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.

Health Information Technology Regional Extension Centers

Health Information Technology Regional Extension Centers

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Health IT Policy Committee Information Exchange Workgroup Meeting

October 21st, 2009

Health IT Policy Committee Information Exchange Workgroup Meeting

Note about this meetingThe Workgroup will be hearing testimony from invited experts and stakeholders in the area of electronic exchange of laboratory information. They met on October 20, 2009.  Here is a link to their agenda.

CALL TO ORDER
• Judy Sparrow, Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.  Overview (warning: PPT file)

Overview of Meeting
• Deven McGraw, Chair, Information Exchange Workgroup
• Micky Tripathi, Co‐Chair, Information Exchange Workgroup Background
• Angela Brice-Smith, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
• Kelly Cronin, Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology

Part I: Business Issues related to the Electronic Exchange of Laboratory Data
• Mike Nolte, GE Health Systems
• Vasu Manjrekar, eClinicalWorks
• Phil Marshall, WebMD
• Tim Ryan, Quest Diagnostics
• Susan Neill, Texas Department of State Health Services

Part II: Business Issues related to the Electronic Exchange of Laboratory Data
• Laura Rosas, New York City Primary Care Information Project
• Sarah Chouinard, Primary Care Systems, Inc. and Community Health Network of West Virginia
• Raymond Scott, Axolotl Corporation
• Areg Boyamyan and Jim Timmons, Foundation Laboratory

Regulatory and Policy Issues
• Joy Pritts, Georgetown University Health Policy Institute
• Don Horton, LabCorp
• Jonah Frohlich, California Health and Human Service Agency
• Walter Sujansky, Sujansky & Associates

Public Comment

Some excerpts:

Laura Rosas, New York City Primary Care Information Project (PDF file):

“Unfortunately, electronic lab interfaces have proved to be one of the greatest barriers encountered in this project. Through great effort on the part of our EHR vendor, commercial laboratories, and the PCIP’s dedicated staff, we have managed to provide electronic lab interfaces to approximately two-thirds of our practices over a period of two years. It has proven nearly impossible under current processes to ensure that practices have an electronic laboratory interface at the same time that they go “live” on their EHR. Many of these practices waited months before they had an electronic interface, and subsequently needed to create complicated “workarounds” in the interim. On average, implementing, testing, and validating a lab interface for a PCIP practice takes about 10-14 weeks.”

Jonah Frohlich, California Health and Human Service Agency (PDF file)

“There is virtually no standardization of lab messaging in the industry today. In my experience working on ELINCS projects – initiatives that use highly constrained HL7 messages or “implementation guides” to support electronic lab results delivery – all hospitals needed considerable outside technical assistance to comply with the standard. Labs required assistance to adopt the LOINC coding scheme; a standard naming system for lab tests, and labs were unprepared to adopt SNOMED or UCUM; standard coding schemes for results and units of measures. The lab information systems the hospitals operated had internal “proprietary” codes for test names, and they had little expertise to “map” these codes to LOINC. These labs relied heavily on external technical assistance to do the necessary mapping for the most frequent 95% of reported tests as required by ELINCS – approximately 150 of the thousands of reportable tests in their databases.”

Vasu Manjrekar, eClinicalWorks (PDF file)

“Despite a concentrated effort on the part of eClinicalWorks and its Reference Lab partners over past several years, it has been difficult to provide electronic laboratory interface at go “live” on their EHR. Many of these practices wait months before they get an electronic interface, and subsequently needed to create “workarounds” in the interim. On average, implementing, testing, and validating a lab interface for a practice with National Reference Lab companies take about anywhere from 4-14 weeks.”

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AMGA MGMA Perot to Provide Services to Regional Extension Centers

October 9th, 2009

AMGA, MGMA and Perot Form Alliance for Services to New Regional Extension Centers

The American Medical Group Association (AMGA), the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) and Perot Systems Corporation (NYSE: PER) today announced the formation of an alliance of the three organizations to offer electronic health record (EHR)-related training and implementation services to newly established Health Information Technology (HIT) Regional Extension Centers (RECs or Extension Centers).

“The HIT Regional Extension Centers are going to play a critical role in helping targeted physicians, hospitals and other healthcare providers recognize the benefits of Health Information Technology and how it will improve patient care and healthcare economics,” said Donald Fisher, Ph.D., President and CEO of AMGA. “Through the Alliance, we are prepared to help these newly established Extension Centers have an immediate impact in their designated regions by providing a number of key services and competitive solutions.”

“MGMA is committed to helping medical group practices make the right decisions when it comes to implementing EHRs and making other critical technology decisions,” said William Jessee, M.D., FACMPE, President and CEO of MGMA. “We believe this partnership represents a natural extension of our mission, and we are pleased to be a part of the team helping the Extension Centers achieve this critical mission.”

“The services the Alliance can provide are geared towards educating physician practices, hospitals and other qualifying healthcare organizations about EHR and HIE technology,” said Chuck Lyles, president of Perot Systems healthcare group. “This will allow these groups to make the most informed decision about the appropriate EHR for their organization and how they can successfully manage the implementation and integration into their current workflows.”

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New York HEAL NY Community-Based Health Information Technology

September 30th, 2009

New York Announces $60 Million Funding for HEAL NY

“HEAL NY” Funding Will Support Improvements in Health IT, Hospital Restructuring and Community-Based Services for Older Adults and Individuals with Disabilities

HEAL NY Phase 10:
Nearly $60 million of the funding, through HEAL NY Phase 10, will go to community-based health information technology (IT) projects to build a more streamlined approach to sharing patient information. These projects will lead to significant savings in health care in the coming years. Unnecessary paperwork and redundancies throughout the system will be removed, and doctors and nurses will have better access to information of patients who transfers from one medical center to another.

These reforms are based on the Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH) model, which health care professionals believe to be the most effective in treating a patient – by establishing a partnership among doctors, nurses, patients and their families to ensure that patients have the support they need to participate in their own care.

HEAL NY Phase 11:
A second block of funding, HEAL NY Phase 11, consists of more than $174 million in grants to 25 hospitals across the State to enter into collaborative arrangements that promote quality and efficiency in the delivery of care appropriate to the needs of their communities.

These awards will help the recipient hospitals to eliminate duplicative services and achieve greater efficiency in providing services responsive to identified community needs.  For example, the Catholic Health System’s merger of its three acute care hospitals in Western New York into its single governance structure will lead to a more efficient service line model – patients will get better care, and operating costs will go down. In New York City, an award to St. Vincent’s Catholic Medical Center in Manhattan will support that facility’s collaboration with NYU Hospitals Center to consolidate services in pediatrics, physical rehabilitation, psychiatry and cardiovascular care, while eliminating more than 60 beds that are no longer needed.

HEAL NY Phase 12:
Finally, the HEAL NY Phase 12 awards consist more than $172 million in grants to 19 applicants for projects to support long-term care services in community-based settings. The primary goal of these awards is to help communities organize, finance and develop alternatives to traditional nursing home while reducing of nursing homes’ certified inpatient bed capacity.

These awards will result in new community-based, long-term care options, including Assisted Living Programs, Assisted Living Residences, Enriched Housing Programs, and affordable senior housing with coordinated medical services.

A complete list of the HEAL NY awards by institution is available at: http://www.ny.gov/governor/press/pdf/press_0925091-b.pdf.

A complete list of the HEAL NY awards in Queens is available at: http://www.ny.gov/governor/press/pdf/press_0925091-a.pdf.

The following is a region-by-region list of HEAL NY Phase 10, 11 and 12 awards:

Total New York City Region Awards: $140,115,761

  • Phase 10 New York City Awards: $13,741,782
  • Phase 11 New York City Awards: $63,173,261
  • Phase 12 New York City Awards: $63,200,718

Total Northern Region Awards: $23,183,925

  • Phase 10 Northern Awards: $7,000,000
  • Phase 11 Northern Awards: $6,021,752
  • Phase 12 Northern Awards: $10,162,173

Total Western Region Awards: $67,839,658

  • Phase 10 Western Awards: $13,997,972
  • Phase 11 Western Awards: $23,399,321
  • Phase 12 Western Awards: $30,442,365

Total Central Region Awards: $72,320,205

  • Phase 10 Central Awards: $6,676,804
  • Phase 11 Central Awards: $23,856,401
  • Phase 12 Central Awards: $41,787,000

Total Hudson Valley Region Awards: $65,168,126

  • Phase 10 Hudson Valley Awards: $5,902,937
  • Phase 11 Hudson Valley Awards: $35,957,244
  • Phase 12 Hudson Valley Awards: $23,307,945

Total Long Island Region Awards: $37,694,355

  • Phase 10 Long Island Awards: $12,295,218
  • Phase 11 Long Island Awards: $21,935,797
  • Phase 12 Long Island Awards: $3,463,340
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