Health Information Technology

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Health Information Technology

• Extension Program

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Health Information Technology Extension Program

• for establishing centers to assist providers
  seeking to adopt and become meaningful users of
  health information technology.

Required under Section 3012(c) of the Public
Health Science Act as added by ARRA
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Health Information Technology Extension Program

• The extension program consists of
• National Health Information Technology Research
  Center (HITRC)
• Regional Extension Centers

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Health Information Technology Extension Program

• Providers that seek to adopt and effectively use
  health information technology face a variety of
  tasks which include
• Assessing needs.
• Selecting and negotiating with a system vendor or
  reseller.
• Implementing workflow changes to improve clinical
  performance.
• Improve patient outcomes.

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Regional Extension Centers

• Goals
• Encourage adoption of certified electronic health
  records (EHRs) by clinicians and hospitals.
• Assist clinicians and hospitals to become
  meaningful users of electronic health records.
• Increase the probability of adopters of
  electronic health record systems will become
  meaningful uses of the technology.

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Regional Extension Centers

• Objectives
• Assistance with Implementation, effective use,
  upgrading and ongoing maintenance of health
  information technology, including electronic
  health records.
• Broad participation of individuals from industry,
  universities and state governments.
• Active dissemination of best practices and
  research on the implementation, effective use,
  upgrading and ongoing maintenance.
• Participation, to the extent practicable, in
  health information exchange.

(continued)
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Regional Extension Centers

• Objectives- continued
• E. Utilization, when appropriate, of expertise
  and capability that exists in Federal agencies,
  other than DHHS.
• F. Integration of health information technology
  into the initial and ongoing training of health
  professionals and others in the healthcare
  industry.

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Regional Extension Centers

• Priorities
• Each regional center shall aim to provide
  assistance and education to all providers in a
  region but shall prioritize any direct assistance
  to
• Public or not-for-profit hospitals or
  critical-access hospitals.
• Federally qualified health centers.
• Entities that are located in rural and other
  areas that serve uninsured, underinsured and
  medically underserved.
• Individual or small group practices.

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Regional Extension Centers

• Regional centers shall be affiliated with any
  United States based non-profit organization, or
  group thereof.

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Regional Extension Centers

• Required Criteria (may include)
• Define the geographic region and the provider
  population within that region.
• Describe proposed levels and approaches of
  support for prioritized and other providers to be
  served.
• Address how the applicant would structure its
  organization and staffing to enable providers
  served to have ready access to reasonably local
  health IT extension agents and provide training
  and on-going support for these critical workers.

(continued)
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Regional Extension Centers

• Required Criteria (may include) -continued
• Demonstrate the capacity to facilitate and
  support cooperation among local providers, health
  systems, communities, and health information
  exchanges.
• Demonstrate that the applicant is able to meet
  the needs of providers prioritized for direct
  assistance.
• Propose an efficient and feasible strategy to
  furnish deep specialized expertise (in areas of
  organizational development, legal issues, privacy
  and security, economic and financing issues and
  evaluation) broadly to all providers served.

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Regional Extension Center

• Preference Criteria
• To regional center organizational plans and
  implementation strategies incorporating
  multi-stakeholder collaborations that leverage
  local resources.
• Public and/or private universities with health
  professors, informatics and allied health
  programs.
• State or regional medical/professional societies.
• Other provider organizations.
• Federally recognized state primary care
  associations.
• State or regional hospital organizations

(continued)
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Regional Extension Center

• Preference Criteria- continued
• Large health centers
• Networks of rural and/or community health centers
• Regionally relevant state Area Health Education
  Centers
• Health information exchange organization
• Medicare Quality Improvement Organizations

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Matching Funds

• Preference to applicants identifying viable
  sources of matching funds
• Grants from states, non-profit foundations
• Payment for services from providers (able to make
  such payment)

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Regional Extension Center

• Support Levels
• Matching funds and coordination of existing
  resources.
• Two year awards FY2010
• Average award 1 million- 2 million
• Maximum award to any one regional center is 10
  million

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Regional Extension Centers

• The regional centers will become, upon award,
  members of a consortium that will be coordinated
  and facilitated by HITRC.

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Health Information Technology Extension Program

• The extension program will include provisions in
  both the HITRC and Regional Centers awards to
  assure that the program addresses the unique
  needs of providers serving American Indian and
  Alaska natives, non-English speaking, and other
  underserved populations. As well as those that
  service patients with maternal, child, long term
  care and behavioral health needs.

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The Health Information Technology for Economic
and Clinical Health Act ( The HITECH Act)

• The HITECH Act prioritizes health information
  technology for
• Uninsured
• Underinsured
• Historically underserved
• other special-needs populations
• Use of that technology to achieve reduction in
  health disparities.

Public Law (111-5) ARRA
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