The Health & Human Services Department today awarded $220 million in total to 15 "beacon" communities around the country. The awards are intended to help build showcases of health IT adoption in complex care settings and to serve as models for other localities just starting to adopt health IT.
The awards represent the final remaining block of grant funding for health IT projects from some $2 billion allocated to the Office of the National Coordinator in the 2009 HITECH Act establishing the health IT incentive program.
In announcing the awards, ONC boss Dr. David Blumenthal said the grantees would demonstrate the practical aspects of how hospitals, clinicians and patients can come together across whole communities to become meaningful users of health IT.
"The beacon communities will offer evidence that widespread adoption of health IT and exchange of health information is both feasible and improves care delivery and health outcomes," he said. "The lessons learned through the program will be a roadmap for other communities to achieve meaningful use on a community-wide basis."
As part of their awards, beacon communities will be expected to coordinate with existing federal programs, including the regional health IT extension centers offering technical assistance to health IT adopters, the National Health IT Research Center, a coordinator center for health IT training and education as well as state health information exchange organizations.
Over time, the communities will also participate in other federal efforts to promote local and regional health information exchange, including efforts by the Veterans Affairs and Defense departments to build a Virtual Lifetime Electronic Health Record for active military, reserve and veterans members. The military has begun its own beacon community program of sorts, having recently rolled out VLER pilots in the San Diego, Calif., and Hampton Roads, Va. areas.
Each beacon community has decided on specific, measurable improvement goals in each of three areas targeted for health systems improvement: quality, cost-efficiency, and population health.
"The most important health care innovations are those that are designed and tested by providers and community leaders," said HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in announcing the awards.
For instance, the Community Services Council of Tulsa, Okla., received more than $12 million to use health IT to help reduce soaring rates of obesity and type-2 diabetes in the area, which currently has the highest rate of deaths from cardiovascular disease in the nation.
The Tulsa award will help 1,600 physicians and other providers participate in a new community-wide health information system to better monitor and improve coordination as patients move from one physician and setting to another in the course of their treatment.
The funds are expected to facilitate referrals for cancer screenings, expand access to care for patients with diabetes through telemedicine, and reduce preventable hospitalizations and emergency department visits by 10 percent.
If those goals are realized, the plan is expected to yield a potential cost savings of $11 million annually in the Tulsa area, according to HHS.
Some of the other awardees are national health IT leaders, such as Geisinger Clinic in Danville, Pa., which plans to create a community-wide medical home for patients with pulmonary disease and congestive heart failure. The Indiana Health Information Exchange, Inc., in Indianapolis, Ind., will expand health information exchange to new community providers to improve cholesterol and blood sugar control for diabetic patients. Each received more $16 million.
Other awards will benefit rural and underserved communities, such as the University of Hawaii at Hilo, Hawaii, which received $16 million for a region-wide health information exchange and patient record, Internet-based care coordination and tele-monitoring of patients with chronic diseases.
The Delta Health Alliance Inc., in Stoneville, Miss., which received $14.7 million, will concentrate on improvements for diabetic patients by electronically linking isolated systems and practices for care and medication management and patient education.
Other communities will use their beacon awards to generate better control of blood pressure for diabetic and hypertensive patients, reductions in preventable emergency department visits and re-hospitalizations, better rates of immunization for children and adults, and better adherence to smoking cessation.
Another $30 million is currently available to fund additional beacon community cooperative agreement awards, which HHS will announce later.
The announcement and complete list of awardees is online.
