HHS is hoping to help 1,655 critical-access and rural hospitals in 41 states and on several Indian reservations adopt EHRs with $20 million in new technical-assistance funding through the Regional Extension Center program.
"The funding we are announcing today is a new category of support, aimed specifically at assisting critical access and rural hospitals with their particular needs and challenges. This new funding is added to the substantial base we have already built to provide assistance to healthcare providers throughout the country as they transition to EHRs," HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a press release issued Friday."The benefits of health information technology can be especially important for patients and clinicians in small and rural healthcare facilities, yet these facilities face high hurdles as they look toward joining in the transition to electronic information."
The money, authorized by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, is being awarded to 46 of the 60 RECs to provide guidance, technical assistance and information on best practices as part of the REC program's Critical Access Hospitals and Rural Hospitals Project. The project targets hospitals with no more than 50 beds, though it will emphasize outpatient EHRs, Healthcare IT News reports.
"The added level of support we are announcing today 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," national HIT coordinator Dr. David Blumenthal said in the same HHS statement.
Including this $20 million round of grants, HHS has awarded a total of $663 million in stimulus funding to support the extension centers.
For more information:
- read this Healthcare IT News story
- see this HHS press release, which includes the full list of awardees