By Molly Merrill, Healthcare IT News
The Office of National Coordinator (ONC) on Wednesday announced a new round of two additional "Beacon" awards totaling $30.3 million.
Earlier this month the ONC announced awards of $220 million to 15 Beacon communities across the nation from Maine to Hawaii that will serve as models for the broad use of healthcare information technology. The awardees will use health IT resources within their community as a foundation for bringing doctors, hospitals, community health programs, federal programs and patients together to design new ways of improving quality and efficiency to benefit patients and taxpayers.
Officials said the additional awards will be made in the form of cooperative agreements to two qualified non-profit organizations or government entities representing geographic healthcare communities.
According to the grant criteria selected communities must already be national leaders in the advancement of health IT, workflow redesign and care coordination, or quality monitoring and feedback. In addition, successful communities must have advanced rates of electronic health record adoption and health information exchange, and the readiness to incorporate health IT to advance community-level care coordination and quality monitoring and feedback. Cooperative agreement recipients will evolve and advance their existing competencies in these three areas over a 36-month performance period.
Applicants are required to submit a Letter of Intent to apply for this funding opportunity by June 28. Award decisions for Beacon Communities are anticipated to be made in mid August 2010.
"We look forward to welcoming our two new Beacon Communities into the program," said Aaron McKethan, program director of the Beacon Community Program at ONC.
