This week's featured item is from Healthcare IT News.
Government releases millions to train 'cadre' of health IT professionals
by Bernie Monegain, Editor
WASHINGTON – Some of the nation's leading universities, community colleges, and major research centers will receive government awards totaling $84 million to advance the widespread adoption and meaningful use of healthcare information technology.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced the awards on Friday to 16 universities and junior colleges to support training and development of more than 50,000 new health IT professionals.
Additionally, Strategic Health IT Advanced Research Projects (SHARP) awards totaling $60 million were provided to four advanced research institutions ($15 million each) to focus on solving current and future challenges that represent barriers to adoption and meaningful use of health IT. The SHARP awards were announced in an e-mail from David Blumenthal, MD, national coordinator for health IT.
Both sets of awards are funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The awards are part of the $2 billion effort to achieve widespread meaningful use of healthcare IT and provide for the use of an electronic health record (EHR) for each person in the United States by 2014, Sebelius said in a statement.
"Training a cadre of new health IT professionals and breaking down barriers to the adoption of meaningful use of health IT are both critical to the national effort to use information technology to realize better patient care," said Blumenthal. "The institutions receiving awards today will develop necessary roadmaps to help healthcare providers and hospitals implement and effectively use electronic health records."
*For the full list of recipients, see the original here.
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