Even as the chorus grows to delay or even scrap Stage 3 of the Meaningful Use EHR incentive program amid accusations of “information blocking,” the Department of Health and Human Services continues to back interoperability efforts.
Tuesday, HHS’ Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology announced $38.5 million in new grants for state-level health information exchange, population health and health IT workforce development.
ONC is giving $29.6 million over the next two years to agencies or state-designated entities in 12 states to promote interoperability of health information and services. Those states are: Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina and Utah.
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Another $2.2 million goes to healthcare research organization AcademyHealth to develop population health strategies under the new Community Health Peer Learning Program. AcademyHealth will select 15 communities nationwide to participate.
“These communities will work to address their population health challenge through improved data aggregation, data portability and data analysis,” ONC Chief Medical Officer Dr. Thomas A. Mason wrote on the Health IT Buzz blog. ONC said that the Community Health Peer Learning Program “builds upon the success” of the 17 participants in the Beacon Communities program,which ran 2010-2013.
The remaining $6.7 million in grants will go to seven colleges and universities to update the curriculum from an earlier ONC-funded health IT workforce training program. Some of this money also will help the schools train 6,000 current health IT workers to use new technology.
“The training will be completed in five days or less to accommodate professionals with restricted schedules and will be offered in various settings, such as online, in-person, or train-the-trainer programs,” according to Dr. William Hersh, chair of medical informatics and clinical epidemiology at Oregon Health & Science University. Portland-based OHSU is one of the seven grantees.
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“It should be noted that these trainings are targeted towards a variety of settings: team-based care environments, long-term care facilities, patient-centered medical homes, accountable care organizations, hospitals and clinics,” ONC’s Mason said.
