On Tuesday, National Coordinator for Health IT David Blumenthal announced new grants totaling $12 million for 48 regional extension centers to help critical access and rural hospitals adopt health IT, Modern Healthcare reports (Conn, Modern Healthcare, 2/8).
The 62 RECs across the country are designed to provide a variety of services to help health care providers become meaningful users of health IT. Under the 2009 economic stimulus package, health care providers who demonstrate meaningful use of certified electronic health records can qualify for Medicaid and Medicare incentive payments (Merrill, Healthcare IT News, 2/8).
Funding Details
The grants range in value from $18,000 to $1,068,000 (Modern Healthcare, 2/8). The funding will be put toward helping RECs offer more technical support to critical access and smaller, rural facilities in implementing EHR systems.
The grants are part of the economic stimulus package's HITECH Act (Healthcare IT News, 2/8).
The total amount of federal funding for RECs specifically for critical access and rural hospitals is now $32 million, according to ONC (Modern Healthcare, 2/8).
A complete list of grant recipients is available on an HHS website.
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