The Obama administration asked for $78 million to run the Office of the National Coordinator in its fiscal 2011 budget released yesterday, a $17 million bump-up from last year's budget for the health IT office.
The 28 percent boost was an exception to more modest increases for agencies and programs associated with health IT. The administration requested $81 billion for the Health and Human Services Department " a $2.3 billion increase over last year. That excludes entitlements such as Medicare as well as funding for health IT incentives included in last year's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
ONC has been shepherding grant programs fueled by $2 billion in ARRA funds to assist healthcare providers deploy EHRs. The HHS budget will build on that.
In delivering the budget, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius remarked that the health IT was essential for modernizing the healthcare system. "The increase will enable ONC to lead and coordinate federal health IT efforts while implementing and evaluating Recovery Act health IT programs," she said.
HHS also proposed $80 million of its budget for the Health Resources and Services Administration to expand health IT adoption in community health centers, which often serve people who are under-insured or have no health insurance.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which will oversee billions of dollars in incentives to providers, would also direct funds to revamp its information technology systems as it prepares to focus on paying for high quality and efficient care as a result of the health IT measures in the stimulus.
For instance, CMS will apply $110 million for the Health Care Data Improvement Initiative to overhaul the agency's data environment from one focused primarily on claims processing to one also focused on state-of-the-art data analysis and information sharing.
"These changes are vital to modernizing the Medicare and Medicaid programs by making CMS a leader in value-based purchasing, improving systems security and increasing analytic capabilities and data-sharing with key stakeholders," Sebelius said.
For the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the HHS budget will increase health IT research by $4 million to $32 million in 2011. The agency will continue to develop and distribute tools that inform healthcare organizations how health IT can improve the quality, safety and efficiency of healthcare. The 2011 budget will support 44 projects at AHRQ, which are in line or support meaningful use of health IT, according to the HHS budget details.
The Office of Civil Rights, which last year assumed management of the privacy and security of personal health information under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), would receive $1.6 million for regional privacy advisors, which the stimulus requires.
In addition to health IT-related funding, the HHS budget would also target more than twice as much funding, or $561 million in 2011 compared with $250 million previously, to reduce fraud and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid. HHS would direct. The funding would include new Medicare program integrity proposals that would enhance provider enrollment scrutiny, increase claims oversight and improve data analysis, Sebelius said.
More details about HHS' 2011 budget are online.
