The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is launching a series of initiatives to assist more than 900 community health centers and community-based organizations to enhance the quality and coordination of healthcare services.
The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Administrator Mary Wakefield, PhD, RN, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) National Coordinator for Health IT, Farzad Mostashari, MD, has granted awards of $8.5 million to 85 community health center programs, located in 15 of the 17 Beacon Communities throughout the U.S.
Certain U.S. rural health networks will receive more than $11.9 million to support their adoption of health IT and certified EHR technology. The funding, announced by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, also will help these rural health networks’ participating eligible providers qualify for Medicare and Medicaid EHR incentive payments, administered by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
More than $40 million in grants, partly supported by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), has been awarded to state, tribal, local and territorial health departments and several schools of public health by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to enhance public health infrastructure and strengthen the public health workforce.
Increased public health investments can produce measurable improvements in health, especially in low-resource communities. However, without improvements in public health practices, more money by itself is unlikely to generate significant and sustainable health gains, according to a study published online July 21 in Health Affairs.
The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) will award $9 million in fiscal year 2011, providing one-time supplemental funding of up to $100,000 to support health centers located in Beacon Communities, stated Carlene Randolph, branch chief of health IT at the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services’ HRSA stated during a conference call June 30.
Use of nonprofit community clinics and health centers is increasing, and these facilities are seeing more uninsured patients and more chronic conditions, according to a report from Direct Relief.
“Exception situations” can enable clinicians to get around the limitations of structured data during clinical documentation in an EHR but must be handled carefully to avoid errors, according to a case report published online June 14 in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.
