Health information technology pilot communities announced

Tuesday, May 4 – Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius joined Vice President Joe Biden in announcing the selection of 15 health information technology pilot communities through the Recovery Act Beacon Community Program.

The Beacon Community Cooperative Agreement Program provides funding to communities to build and strengthen their health information technology (health IT) infrastructure and exchange capabilities. These communities will demonstrate the vision of a future where hospitals, clinicians and patients are meaningful users of health IT, and together the community achieves measurable improvements in healthcare quality, safety, efficiency and population health.

The program provides funding to communities at the cutting edge of electronic health record (EHR) adoption and health information exchange to push them to a new level of sustainable healthcare quality and efficiency. This program is anticipated to demonstrate how health IT can help providers and consumers develop innovative ways of delivering care leading to sustainable and measurable health and efficiency improvements.  The program also will generate lessons learned on how other communities can achieve similar goals enabled by health IT.

In May 2010, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) made awards in the form of cooperative agreements to the following 15 qualified non-profit organizations or government entities:

Community Services Council of Tulsa, Tulsa, OK $12,043,948;
Delta Health Alliance, Inc., Stoneville, MS $14,666,156;Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems, Brewer, ME $12,749,740;
Geisinger Clinic, Danville, PA $16,069,110;
HealthInsight, Salt Lake City, UT $15,790,181;
Indiana Health Information Exchange, INC., Indianapolis, IN $16,008,431;
Inland Northwest Health Services, Spokane, WA $15,702,479;
Louisiana Public Health Institute, New Orleans, LA $13,525,434;
Mayo Clinic Rochester, d/b/a Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, MN $12,284,770;
Rhode Island Quality Institute, Providence, RI $15,914,787;
Rocky Mountain Health Maintenance Organization, Grand Junction, CO $11,878,279;
Southern Piedmont Community Care Plan, Inc., Concord, NC $15,907,622;
The Regents of the University of California at San Diego, San Diego, CA $15,275,115;University of Hawaii at Hilo, Hilo, HI $16,091,390; and
Western New York Clinical Information Exchange, Inc., Albany, NY $16,092,485

An additional $30.3 million is currently available to fund Beacon Community cooperative agreement awards. An announcement to apply will be made in the near future.

For more information on the Beacon Community Program, e-mail [email protected].