Louisiana Health Care Quality Forum Receives New Funds to Support Rural Hospitals’ Switch to Electronic Health Records

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that the Louisiana Health Care Quality Forum was awarded $768,000 to provide technical assistance to critical access and rural hospital facilities as they convert from paper-based medical records to certified electronic health record (EHR) technology.

The Louisiana Health Care Quality Forum is one of 46 Regional Extension Centers (RECs) to receive this new support, which totals nearly $20 million. 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 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.

The funding announced comes through one of the ONC programs, the Regional Extension Centers (RECs).  RECs, such as the Louisiana Health Care Quality Forum, offer technical assistance, guidance, and information on best practices to support and accelerate health care providers’ efforts to become meaningful users of certified EHRs under the Medicare and Medicaid incentives programs.  A total of 60 RECs are located throughout the country.

This funding is being awarded to 46 of the RECs, serving providers in 41 states and the nationwide Indian Country.  A total of 1,655 critical access and rural hospitals are in the areas covered by these RECs.  The funding is part of the Critical Access Hospitals and Rural Hospitals (CAH/Rural Hospital) Project, a priority for the REC program.  The intent of the project is to provide additional technical support to critical access and rural hospitals with fewer than 50 beds in selecting and implementing EHR systems primarily within the outpatient setting.

“Regional Extension Centers are poised to provide the hands-on, field support needed by health care providers to advance the rapid adoption and use of health IT,” said David Blumenthal, M.D., National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.  “The added level of support we are announcing will enable the RECs to offer greater field support to these communities as they deal with the financial and workforce constraints, and work to achieve access to broadband connectivity and to overcome other barriers that critical access hospitals and other rural hospitals may confront.”

RECs provide a resource for technical assistance, guidance, and information to local health care providers on best practices around EHR adoption and meaningful use. RECs are designed to address unique community requirements and to support and accelerate provider efforts to become meaningful users of certified EHR technology.  This round of awards builds on the funding that RECs are already receiving under the HITECH Act, bringing the total amount of funding awarded to date to support the efforts of RECs to over $663 million.

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