New health IT grants to be 'models' for the nation

The federal government will offer $235 million in grants for communities to upgrade and improve their health information technology, The Dallas Morning News reports. Only organizations that are already using health IT are eligible. Health secretary Kathleen Sebelius said, "Our hope is that the communities will become models for the rest of the country" (Roberson, 12/2).

Modern Healthcare has the details: "Awards ranging from $10 million to $20 million each will be made in the form of 'cooperative agreements' to organizations that are already 'national leaders in the advancement of health IT, workflow redesign and care coordination, or quality monitoring and feedback'; that are advanced in EHR adoption and the use of health information exchange; and that have 'the readiness to incorporate health IT to advance community-level care coordination and quality monitoring and feedback.'" Eligible recipients include state and local government programs educational institutions, and some other nonprofit organizations (Conn, 12/2).

---

This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.