HHS grants $87 Million to stimulate IT adoption in health centers

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on the day of Thursday declared $87 million in awards for 1,310 health centers to stimulate IT adoption in entire fifty states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

In accordance to HHS, health IT is a proposed part of the Obama administration’s attempts to make a healthcare system that delivers better care, smarter spending and healthier individuals. The center added that this is the 1^st important investment to stimulate IT adoption since the year of 2009 directly granted to health centers to reinforce the purchase of health IT. HHS asserted that entire purchases or upgrades of electronic health record systems (EHRs) made with the funding must utilize technology notified by the Office of the National Coordinator for HIT.

“Health centers across the state are instrumental in offering high-quality, detailed primary healthcare to millions of persons,” stated HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell. “This contribution will assist to unlock healthcare data and put it to work, making better the health results and building a better healthcare system for the American persons.”

Among other objectives, the agency claimed the funding will be utilized to stimulate IT adoption and health information technology enhancements to accelerate health centers’ transition to value-based models of care; make better the efforts to share and use data to support better decisions; and increase engagement in delivery network transformation.

Presently, the Health Center Program funded by Health Resources and Services Administration supports almost 1,400 health centers that operate over 9,800 service delivery sites. The health centers hire more than 190,000 staff members who offer care for almost 24 million sufferers.

“These awards will permit health centers to deliver higher quality of care to sufferers and spend health care dollars in a smarter way,” stated HRSA Acting Administrator Jim Macrae

The investment comes from the Affordable Care Act’s Community Health Center Fund, which was expanded with bipartisan support in the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) of the 2015 year.