As a part of its efforts to steer providers toward meaningful use of health IT, the Health and Human Services Department awarded a second round of grants totaling $162 million to 16 states to help them ramp up health information exchange systems and services.
Every state has now been awarded funds under this program. HHS announced a first round total of $385 million to 40 states on Feb 12.
As part of the grants, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT will give states guidance and technical assistance, essentially working "side by side with the states, looking at their plans and helping them to design and implement them," said David Blumenthal, the national HIT coordinator, in a March 15 teleconference with reporters.
"We're going to impress upon them as a measure of continuing to work with these funds that they use standards that are compatible with those adopted in the final (meaningful use) rule," Blumenthal said.
Health information exchange makes possible care coordination of patients and improvement in the quality and efficiency of health care, he said. It's also a foundation of meaningful use of electronic health records for providers to qualify for payment incentives under the HITECH Act.
"States have to take a leadership role in this area because they are closer to the ground than we (are) at the federal level," Blumenthal said.
ONC is also creating pools of services that enable health information exchange which embody those final rule standards, and those services will be available to states.
"The nationwide health information network (NHIN) and several variants of the NHIN will be available to them to use with their providers and insurers to make sure that exchange is possible," Blumenthal said.
The NHIN is a set of standards and services that enable providers to exchange information securely through the Internet. ONC recently announced NHIN Direct, a streamlined version meant to broaden the participants exchanging information.
Among the state organizations receiving the highest awards in the latest round were Texas Health and Human Services Commission, $28.8 million;
Florida's Agency of Health Care Administration, $20.7 million; and the New Jersey Health Care Facilities Financing Authority, $11.4 million. The State of Alaska received $4.9 million and the State of North Dakota IT Department, $5.3 million.
Participating states will also be expected to establish up-to-date privacy and security requirements for HIE within and across state borders as well as to set up state-level directories and technical services to enable interoperability.
State must also coordinate with Medicaid and state public health programs to enable information exchange and support monitoring of provider participation in HIE.
More information about the state HIE program is available online.
