More than 30 communities have applied to participate in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ new electronic health record (EHR) demonstration project, which will offer primary care physician practices Medicare incentive payments to use certified EHRs to improve the quality of patient care. HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt remarked that this level of interest in the project “shows the great appetite for programs that offer incentives to physicians who efficiently use EHRs to improve the quality of care they provide to their patients.” HHS anticipates that the five-year project will improve the quality of care for about 3.6 million Americans.
HHS will announce the 12 communities selected for the EHR demonstration in early June. In the fall of 2008, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will beginning working with four of these communities to recruit the project’s participating small- and medium-sized primary care physician practices. CMS will begin recruitment activities with the remaining eight communities in 2009.
Find more information at the CMS and HHS web sites about the EHR demonstration project and about the broader HHS initiative, Connecting to Better Health Care, of which the EHR demonstration project is a part.
