Free EMR Newsletter Want to receive the latest news on EMR, Meaningful Use, ARRA and Healthcare IT sent straight to your email? Join thousands of healthcare pros who subscribe to EMR and HIPAA for FREE!
    Email Address:
We never sell or give out your contact information. We respect our readers' privacy.

February 20, 2009

HITECH Act Gives HHS $2 Billion of Discretionary Funds

Written by:

The HITECH Act gives Health and Human Services (HHS) 90 days to develop a plan to allocate $2 Billion of discretionary funds. Talk about a nice infusion of funding for HHS. HHS does have a set of core areas of focus for the money (per an Allscripts presentation on HITECH).

The area of focus that interests me most is the “Regional Health IT Resource Centers.” Seriously, what is a regional health IT resource center? Can any of you imagine a doctor visiting a health IT resource center? I don’t understand how this will work at all.

I have a better idea. Why not take a cool million and give it to me? I’ll create a killer online platform for sharing of health care IT resources where people can share information nationally or within their region. Could be a killer application for sharing information quickly and could be available to every state in the country (and for that matter the world). Unless you think that training health care IT staff is better done without using IT.

Here’s a look at the full list of core areas of focus:

  • Standards requirements due before the end of this year
  • HIE Infastructure, National Health Information Network (NHIN)
  • Regional Health IT Resource Centers
  • Federal grants through AHRQ, HRSA, CMS
  • Grants to the states in 2010
  • Promote advanced EHR
Tags:

Get the Free EMR and HIPAA Email Newsletter:
Email Address:
» EMR and HIPAA Sponsors