Healthcare Financial News

Vice President Joe Biden today announced the availability of grants worth nearly $1.2 billion to help hospitals and healthcare providers implement and use electronic health records (EHRs). The grants will be funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and will help healthcare providers qualify for new incentives that will be made available in 2010 to doctors and hospitals that meaningfully use EHRs.

The grants include $598 million for the purpose of establishing approximately 70 Health Information Technology Regional Extension Centers, which will provide hospitals and clinicians with hands-on technical assistance in the selection, acquisition, implementation, and meaningful use of certified EHR systems.

Grants totaling $564 million to states and qualified state-designated entities will support the development of mechanisms for information sharing within an emerging nationwide system of networks.

The Extension Center grants will be awarded on a rolling basis, with the first awards being issued in FY10. Grants to states will be made in FY10.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will also provide additional assistance to healthcare providers through the Health Information Technology Research Center (HITRC). The HITRC will gather relevant information on effective practices from a wide variety of sources across the country and help the Regional Extension Centers collaborate with one another and with relevant stakeholders to identify and share best practices in EHR adoption, effective use, and provider support.

There is no hard evidence that identifies particular areas in which U.S. healthcare quality is truly exceptional as compared with healthcare in other countries, according to a new analysis from the Urban Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The authors find that the evidence for American superiority in quality of care (or lack thereof) is a mixed bag, with the nation doing relatively well in some areas—such as cancer care—and less well in others—such as mortality from treatable and preventable conditions.
 
And while the evidence base is incomplete and suffers from other limitations, it does not provide support for the claim that the “U.S. health care is the best in the world.” Addressing the American public’s widespread concern about the potential negative impact of health reform on the quality of care they currently receive, the authors conclude that reform should be seen as an opportunity to systematically improve quality of care.

Read the issue brief from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Read a health reform message to HFMA members from HFMA President and CEO Richard L. Clarke.