EHR, Incentive Payments Designed to Increase Quality Care, Outcomes, Reduce Costs

October 27, 2010 at 4:23 pm | Posted in Healthcare News | Leave a comment
Tags: Ethan Moore, EHR, EHR incentive, HIT, HITECH, HITECH ACT, PQRI, health information technology, ARRA, CMS, ONC, HHS, health care, Ethan W. Moore

More than $20 Billion have been approved for electronic health record (“EHR”) adoption incentive payments for physicians and hospitals as part of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (“HITECH”) Act. The provisions of HITECH, under Title IV of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (“ARRA”), require the Office of the National Coordinator (“ONC”) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) to work with various stakeholders on education, outreach, rule-making, and administration of incentive payments. The recently released final rules for meaningful use help lay the foundations for EHR standards, facilitating greater interoperability and communication of essential patient information.

Consistent with the goals of the Obama Administration, Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) Secretary Sebelius and CMS Administrator Dr. Donald Berwick, the standardization and ubiquitous adoption of electronic health records will increase the quality of care, promote better health outcomes and reduce the cost of health care by creating natural efficiencies for consumers and health care providers.

For more information about EHR incentive programs, including HITECH, electronic prescriptions (“eRX”) and the physician quality reporting initiative (“PQRI”), please see:

http://www.cms.gov/EHRIncentivePrograms

http://www.cms.gov/ERxIncentive

http://www.cms.gov/PQRI

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