U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced awards to help states facilitate health information exchange and advance health information technology (health IT). Funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, these awards are part of the $2 billion effort to achieve widespread meaningful use of health IT and provide use of an electronic health record by every citizen by the year 2014. Every state and eligible territory has now been awarded funds under this program.
The health information exchange HIE awards announced provide approximately $162 million to 16 states and qualified state designated entities (SDEs) to facilitate non-proprietary health information exchange that adheres to national standards. Health information exchange is critical to enabling care coordination and improving the quality and efficiency of health care.
“States play a critical leadership role in advancing the development of the exchange capacity of healthcare providers and hospitals within their states and across the nation. Health information exchange will enable eligible healthcare providers to be deemed meaningful users of health IT and receive incentive payments under the Medicare and Medicaid electronic health record (EHR) incentive program,” stated Dr. Blumenthal.
These cooperative agreements were awarded under the authority of Title XIII of ARRA, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act which amends Title XXX of the Public Health Service Act by adding Section 3013, State Grants to Promote Health Information Technology. Section 3013 provides for the awarding of competitive grants to promote health information technology. On February 12, 2010, HHS awarded $385 million to 40 states and SDEs. The awards announced complete the awarding of cooperative agreements funded by this program.
Texas Health and Human Services Commission received the following awarded amount – $28,810,208.
Additional information about the state HIE program may be found at http://healthit.hhs.gov/portal/server.pt?open=512&objID=1488&parentname=CommunityPage&parentid=2&mode=2&in_hi_userid=10741&cached=true and http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/sebelius-solis-announce-nearly-1-billion-recovery-act-investment-advancing-use-heal
Information about other health IT programs funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 can be found here: http://HealthIT.HHS.gov
