The Obama administration used about half of a 50-page report on innovations targeted by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to underscore the importance of health and medical IT to the nation's economic future.
The stimulus legislation, passed in February 2009, was designed to jumpstart the economy.
In presenting the report, Vice President Joe Biden, who was put in charge of seeing that billions of economic stimulus dollars reached its targets, highlighted how the funding is helping drive the use of electronic health records, e-prescribing and the use of mobile devices to link remote patients and providers.
For instance, of the $2 billion spending for the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, $250 million is funding 15 "Beacon" communities to showcase how health IT in combination with other systems can produce better health outcomes.
"These pilot communities will serve as examples to others in how to use health IT to make marked and sustainable improvements in health care quality, safety and efficiency," according to the report.
The report cited the Southern Piedmont Community Care Plan in Concord, N.C., which is using its $15.7 million of its Beacon award to increase the number of patients with healthy blood pressure levels and to reduce the number of children with asthma who end up in the emergency room.
The award will pay for electronic health record management and telemedicine equipment as well as development of an indexed image database that will cut down on the number " and costs " of unnecessary X-rays.
Another community cited in the report, the Western New York Clinical Information Exchange, is applying its grant to acquire clinical decision support tools, such as registries, point-of-care alerts and new telemedicine systems to improve the control of blood sugar and other levels of diabetic patients.
Its goal is to reduce avoidable hospital admissions and emergency room visits.
The stimulus will also fund about $18 billion in incentives to encourage healthcare providers to purchase electronic health record systems starting in 2011 through 2015.
The complete report is online .
