State Grants to Promote Health Information Technology (Health Information Exchange Challenge Program)
Notice of Intent to Apply Due Dec 10, 2010; Applications Dues Jan 5, 2011
Announced by Office of National Coordinator(ONC) for Health IT on December 3, 2010.
Supplement to current State HIE Awardees
Synopsis: “This funding announcement for the Health Information Exchange Challenge Program encourages breakthrough progress for nationwide health information exchange in five challenge areas identified as key needs since Federal and State governments began implementation of the HITECH Act. The awards will fund the development of technology and approaches that will be developed in pilot sites and then shared, reused, and leveraged by other states and communities to increase nationwide interoperability.
“The five themes include:
1. Achieving health goals through health information exchange
2. Improving long-term and post-acute care transitions
3. Giving patients access to their own health information
4. Developing tools and approaches to search for and share granular patient data (such as specific lab results for a given time period)
5. Fostering strategies for population-level analysis”
“Awards will range between $1 million and $2 million each, and will be in the form of supplemental funding to State Health Information Exchange Cooperative Agreements, which have provided approximately half a billion dollars to states and State designated entities to enable health information exchange. Funding for this initiative is approximately $16 million which ONC anticipates will support 10 awards.”
ONC Listing for Program
Funding Announcement [PDF]
Excerpted from PDF on 12/06/2010:
1. Funding Opportunity Description
A. Background and Purpose
Background
On February 1, 2009, the President signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). This statute includes the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act of 2009 (the HITECH Act) that sets forth a plan for advancing the appropriate use of health information technology to improve the quality and efficiency of care. The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) was statutorily created by the HITECH Act within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). ONC serves as the principal federal entity charged with coordinating the overall effort to implement a nationwide health information technology infrastructure that allows for the electronic use and exchange of health information.
As authorized by ARRA (Title XIII, Health Information Technology, Subtitle B, Incentives for Use of Health Information Technology, Sec. 3013, State Grants to Promote Health Information Exchange), the State Health Information Exchange (HIE) Cooperative Agreement Program provides funding to states for planning, capacity building, and implementation activities that will enable health care providers to share health information throughout the continuum of care in order to improve the quality and efficiency of health care.
On August 20, 2009, ONC issued a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA), making $564 million available to states or State Designated Entities (SDEs) to develop and implement the governance, policies, technical services, business operations and financing mechanisms necessary to advance appropriate and secure health information exchange across the health care system. A Program Information Notice (PIN) was released on July 6, 2010 further detailing the expectations for the strategic and operational HIE plans developed and implemented by states and SDEs.
This FOA seeks to build on other funding opportunities by making approximately $16 million available for targeted initiatives in five areas.
Purpose
Widespread adoption and meaningful use of HIT is a foundational step in improving the quality and efficiency of health care. The appropriate and secure electronic exchange and consequent use of health information to improve quality and coordination of care is a critical enabler of a high performance health care system.
The State Health Information Exchange Cooperative Agreement Program is intended to:
• Enable statewide capacity for HIE to allow eligible professionals and hospitals to qualify for Medicare and Medicaid meaningful use incentives;
• Ensure that states address privacy and security issues to allow for the proper access to and use of personal health information;
• Build off of existing state-level and regional efforts to advance HIE;
• Encourage the use of shared resources, services, and state directories to reduce HIE development costs and facilitate interoperability among providers within states; and
• Provide states with enough flexibility to accommodate their unique requirements, yet ensure nationwide interoperability on a policy and technical level.
This funding announcement encourages breakthrough progress for nationwide health information exchange in five challenge areas identified as key needs since Federal and State governments began implementation of the HITECH Act. The awards will fund the development of technology and approaches that will be developed in pilot sites and then shared, reused, and leveraged by other states and communities to increase nationwide interoperability.
ONC recognizes that achieving breakthrough innovations requires taking risks. In each of the five challenge themes we need rapid discovery of what approaches work, and which do not. ONC is not looking for applicants to exactly replicate known success, but to recommend innovative and potentially scalable approaches and a strategy for testing what works, making adjustments to the approach and quickly and publicly sharing the results.
Building on the Strategy for Nationwide Interoperability
The five challenge themes in this funding opportunity announcement address persistent barriers to nationwide health information exchange and interoperability.
The two challenge themes related to consumer-mediated information exchange—whereby consumers aggregate and maintain their own health information through a personal health record or other tools—and inclusion of long-term and post-acute care (LTPAC) providers in health information exchange aim to facilitate the development, implementation, and dissemination of health information exchange solutions for stakeholders with unique interoperability concerns. While existing state and SDE grantees have incorporated private sector actors, such as primary care providers, health IT vendors, health plans, and Regional Extension Centers (RECs), into their HIE strategic and operational plans, breakthrough solutions are needed to reach other stakeholders critical to the success of the nationwide strategy.
The two challenge themes enabling population-level health analytics and enhanced data queries aim to advance analytic resources and scalable solutions to leverage health information exchange for population level learning and improvement. Breakthrough solutions in these challenge themes will lead to the identification of more effective care delivery strategies, quality reporting, and surveillance for public health risks.
The final challenge theme is geared toward demonstrating improved health outcomes through health information exchange, demonstrating how interoperability among clinical systems can transform health care to achieve measurable health care improvement.
Encouraging the Use, Reuse, and Leveraging of Technical Solutions Developed Under Challenge Grants for Nationwide Health Information Exchange
The breakthrough solutions, designs, and processes created under these challenge grants shall be made available to any state or SDE for incorporation into their health information exchange activities.
To receive an award through this FOA, applicants must demonstrate their ability to satisfy a number of general funding requirements. These requirements include: 1) making breakthrough solutions openly available and re-useable by other regions, states, and/or SDEs; 2) creating initiatives that are easily scalable to other regions, states, and/or SDEs; and 3) participating in an open, transparent sharing process which may require participation in a learning community and/or mentoring and supporting other grantees.
B. Project Approach
Each application shall address one of the challenge themes and the general funding requirements outlined below. ONC expects to make approximately ten awards ranging from $1 million to $2 million as supplements to current Cooperative Agreements with states and SDEs.
Applications must address two key aspects of this program:
• Implement an effective and scalable initiative addressing a specific challenge theme from the list provided below
• Broadly share and disseminate the results and innovations developed in the program
