The California Health Information Partnership and Services Organization (CalHIPSO) is joining forces with health technology vendor CDW Healthcare to enable the former--a federally designated regional extension center--to help participating physicians implement their electronic health record systems and attain Stage 1 of the EHR Incentive Program's Meaningful Use requirements.
Under the partnership, CDW will help physicians get the "best return on their investments," while CDW will provide advice to physicians shopping for an EHR system, technical assistance and post-implementation training. CalHIPSO currently has seven EHR vendor partners and plans to add several more to its vendor partner list.
"Our members face an unprecedented challenge in the delivery of patient care," Speranza Avram, executive director of CalHIPSO, said in a statement. "They need no-nonsense EHR solutions that meet the rigorous demands of the clinical environment and that are simple and straightforward to implement."
RECs have been working diligently to meet their goal of helping physicians adopt and use EHRs in a meaningful way, providing outreach, education, EHR technical support and other on the ground assistance. The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT(ONC) so far has funded 62 RECs with an aggregate of $677 million to support their work. More than 100,000 physicians have signed up with local RECs to receive such assistance.
To learn more:
- read the announcement on the partnership