The Office of National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) announced a new round of two additional Beacon awards totaling $30.3 million on Wednesday.
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 selected Beacon Communities 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 approximately 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.
Officials said ONC will be hosting a technical assistance call about the Beacon Communities program on Tuesday, June 1, 2010 from 1:00– 2:00 PM EDT.
"We look forward to welcoming our two new Beacon Communities into the program," said Aaron McKethan, program director, Beacon Community Program, ONC.
Click here to apply.
