Alaska’s healthcare providers to get their own “geek team”
Rebecca Madison: 866-966-9030
April 12, 2010
Federal Funds Boost Effort to Digitize Health Records
For Safety, Security, and Cost Savings.
On April 6th, the Alaska eHealth Network (AeHN) received $3,632,357, from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) to establish one of 60 nationwide
health information technology assistance centers. These centers will provide much-needed technical assistance to eligible doctors and hospitals that select and implement electronic record systems.
“We are ecstatic,” said Rebecca Madison, Executive Director of AeHN, an Alaska-owned non-profit organization. “This is an important step in implementing Health IT solutions across Alaska.”
Alaska’s healthcare practitioners recognize that secure sharing of information through health information exchange has the potential to enhance health care delivery, improve patient safety and reduce healthcare costs, Madison said. However, recent surveys have shown that many of Alaska’s healthcare organizations, especially smaller ones typical in Alaska, have been slow to adopt electronic health records (EHRs) because of complexity and cost.
The federal funding will allow AeHN to establish a health information technology Regional Extension Center that will help Alaska’s healthcare providers learn how to select and use EHRs, and obtain funding assistance for those who adopt EHR systems in coming years.
“We think of the Regional Extension Center as a combination of IT department and geek team available to help medical practices learn how to obtain and use their EHR in a way that benefits their practices and patients, and qualifies them for funding assistance,” said Madison.
The program is funded under the $19 billion in health IT funding approved by Congress in the economic stimulus law. About $2 billion is going to the technical assistance centers and to state health information exchanges. The bulk of the money, about $17 billion, will go directly to doctors and hospitals who buy and "meaningfully use" the digital systems. One goal of AeHN will be to assist smaller providers with implementing the systems and achieving meaningful use by identifying measures for tracking meaningful use.
Working in conjunction with AeHN, the
Alaska EHR Alliance (
www.aehra.org) recently announced its selection of two outstanding Electronic Health Record (EHR) vendors as best choices for Alaska’s healthcare providers. The vendors are:
The 60 Regional Extension Centers nationwide seek to reach 100,000 primary care providers and hospitals in two years, and are part of an effort to achieve widespread meaningful use of health IT and provide use of an electronic health record by every citizen by the year 2014.
U.S. Senator Mark Begich: the Alaska eHealth Network Receives $3.6 million for Electronic Health Records
Recovery Act helps grow emerging health IT industry in Alaska - Read the entire article in Alaska Business Monthly here.