The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has issued grants worth $220 million to 15 communities to develop pilot programs using healthcare IT technology.
The awards, ranging from $11 million to $16 million apiece, have been awarded to communities in California, Colorado, Hawaii, Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah, and Washington. Details about each grant are listed here. The awards were announced on May 4 by Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
Each of these "Beacon Communities" are mandated to use health IT resources within their community as a foundation for bringing doctors, hospitals, community health programs, federal programs, and patients together to design new ways of improving quality and efficiency to benefit patients and taxpayers. The projects are expected to build upon an existing infrastructure of interoperable health IT and standards-based information exchange, according to Dr. David Blumenthal, national coordinator for health IT.
The awards are part of a $2 billion effort to achieve widespread meaningful use of health IT and provide for the use of an electronic health record for each resident of the U.S. by 2014. An additional $30 million is currently available to fund additional Beacon Community cooperative awards.
More than 130 communities submitted applications for the 15 awards.
Related Reading
HHS awards $267M to health IT centers, April 7, 2010
U.S. releases $1B in ARRA funds for HIT, February 12, 2010
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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