Healthcare IT Update

EHR Compliance Issues to Keep an Eye Out For

Linuxerist & Burton Samograd EHRs can make your life easier, if your staff training is comprehensive. Your electronic health record (EHR) system may be helpful in filling in documents on your behalf — but make sure it isn’t filling in more than it should. As most practices are aware, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 offers annual bonuses to practices that show “meaningful use” of EHRs over a five year period starting in 2011. In 2015, practices that aren’t meaningful users will face penalties.

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HHS Pumps More Money into HIT Adoption Efforts

Big schools, little schools and all kinds of lucky non-profits will get ARRA money. Under the gun to get its “meaningful use” definition straight in order to meet the deadlines of October 2010 for hospitals and January 2011 for eligible providers, the Department of Health & Human Services is getting serious about HIT adoption, and the serious American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 money is starting to roll out. In April 2010, the agency announced close to half a billion dollars in grants to schools and non-profits relating to the goal of establishing widespread and meaningful use of electronic health records by 2014.

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Here’s Who Got the Latest $1 Billion in HIT Stimulus Funds

Want to know who’s getting those ARRA dollars? Here’s the list. If the feds are going to get providers anywhere close to their ambitious HIT implementation goals, we’re going to need a lot more HIT workers. That’s why the Department of Health & Human Services and Department of Labor are shelling out big bucks to train the next wave of ‘meaningful users’. The government has extended about $1 billion in ARRA grants to further develop health information technology (HIT), skills-building and education in the healthcare sector, the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) announced recently.

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ARRA Grants: $80 Million for Community College HIT Programs

Application deadline is January 22, 2010. The feds understand that we’ll need legions of new HIT workers to implement national EHR goals, so they’re forking over $80 million in ARRA funds to train them at the community college level. Good news for health care vets who want to develop new HIT skills: The grant funds will support non-degree, community college programs that students can complete in about 6 months — which means you may have more options for HIT continuing education as you continue to work your day job. The programs can be live, online or a combination of the two. Who’s eligible to apply for a piece of the $80 million: “Any U.S. non-profit institution of higher learning currently engaged in providing healthcare IT training that is interested in drafting curriculum or establishing a consortium that includes community colleges may apply for the grants,” reports Healthcare IT News. What…

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