HHS to award $220M in grants to support national health IT network

The federal government plans to award $220 million in health information technology grants early next year that can provide models for how to develop a national network of patient records, the secretary of the Health and Human Services Department said at a press briefing on Wednesday.

The grants mark the single largest investment the department has made in health IT, according to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. The Obama administration believes the grants ultimately will improve the quality of medical care and encourage healthier living.

The grants make up the Beacon Community Program and will be awarded to 15 communities that will serve as guides for the development of a national health IT network that will provide every American with an electronic medical record by 2014, a goal that President George W. Bush also supported, said Dr. David Blumenthal, national coordinator for health information technology at HHS.

The communities chosen for the awards should coordinate their IT efforts with those the Defense and the Veterans Affairs departments are developing to create a Virtual Lifetime Electronic Health Record to serve active-duty and retired military personnel and veterans who receive health care from VA, Blumenthal said. According to the program's proposal, HHS will issue three awards to communities that include the Virtual Lifetime Electronic Health Record as part of their plans.

In a blog post on Wednesday, Blumenthal wrote that communities vying for grants should leverage existing federal programs such as the virtual lifetime record.

He said at the press briefing that HHS also wants communities to tap broadband stimulus funds to develop networks that exchange patient information.

HHS emphasized that it wants to use the grants to facilitate the exchange of medical information based on standards and protocols developed for the Nationwide Health Information Network, which enables the transfer of data from one health provider to another.

The communities should use the grants to promote telemedicine, enable communication with public health agencies, build data repositories and support computerized clinical decision support systems that help doctors diagnose patients.

Grants will go to state, local or tribal governments and nonprofit health systems with broad community partnerships, according to HHS. Applications are due Feb. 1, 2010, and awards are expected in March 2010.