American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009: New funds made available to support rural hospitals’ switch to electronic health records

Press Release from U.S. Department of Health & Human Services:  “HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius today announced nearly $20 million in new technical support assistance to help critical access and rural hospital facilities convert from paper-based medical records to certified electronic health record (EHR) technology. Some 1,655 critical access and rural hospitals in 41 states and the nationwide Indian Country, headquartered in the District of Columbia, stand to benefit from this assistance, which can help each of them qualify for substantial EHR incentive payments from Medicare and Medicaid.

“The benefits of health information technology can be especially important for patients and clinicians in small and rural health care facilities, yet these facilities face high hurdles as they look toward joining in the transition to electronic information,” Secretary Sebelius said. “The funding we are announcing today is a new category of support, aimed specifically at assisting critical access and rural hospitals with their particular needs and challenges. This new funding is added to the substantial base we have already built to provide assistance to health care providers throughout the country as they transition to EHRs.”

The new funding is provided under the Health Information Technology Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The HITECH Act created the Medicare and Medicaid EHR incentive programs, which will provide incentive payments to eligible professionals and hospitals that adopt and demonstrate meaningful use of certified EHR technology. Incentives totaling as much as $27.4 billion over 10 years could be expended under the program, which is administered by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. In addition, the HITECH Act provided $2 billion through the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) to support technical assistance, training, and demonstration projects to assist in the nation’s transition to EHRs.”

Read more:  New funds support rural hospitals’ switch to electronic health records.

Share

Comments are closed.

.............................................................................Back to Top...

Login to Post Comments



Register & Login above to post comments. Click here for Help. To join a Support Group, Register/ Login at CaregiversLikeUs.
ADVERTISEMENT:

The Fifteen Newest Updates on HelpingYouCare® As Of Today

New Posts on HelpingYouCare® by Day or Month

March 2024
M T W T F S S
« Feb    
 123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031

Survey/ Opinion Poll

Participate in a brief
Survey/ Opinion Poll »

We publish the results of our periodic Surveys & Opinion Polls, anonymously. See Survey/ Opinion Poll Results ».

Contribute Content

Write and contribute articles, posts, or other content to this Site, or share links to useful information & resources you have found with the HelpingYouCare® Community.
Read How…

If you find any broken links on this Site, we will appreciate your reporting them to us:

Report Broken Links