The U.S. government has released $1 billion in funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), designed to help healthcare providers adopt information technology.
As part of the initiative, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will provide more than $750 million in funding to help healthcare providers train workers and advance the adoption and meaningful use of healthcare IT. The awards are designed to help make healthcare IT available to more than 100,000 hospitals and primary care physicians by 2014, the department said. The funding was announced on February 12 by Kathleen Sebelius, HHS secretary, and Hilda Solis, secretary of labor.
Of the $761 million, $386 million will go to 40 states and qualified entities to facilitate healthcare information exchanges (HIE) at the state level, while $375 million will go to 32 nonprofit organizations to support the development of regional extension centers (RECs) that will aid healthcare professionals as they work to implement and use health information technology. Additional HIE and REC awards will be announced in the future.
Meanwhile, the Department of Labor will award $225 million in grants to train 15,000 people in job skills needed to access careers in healthcare, IT, and other high-growth fields. The grants will fund 55 separate training programs in 30 states to help train people for health jobs and meet the growing employment demand for health workers, according to HHS.
Related Reading
HHS announces $38 million in health IT grants, December 24, 2009
$60 million issued for HIT research grants, December 21, 2009
Obama issues HIT funding, December 10, 2009
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