HHS’s ONC to Put Regional Extension Center Rollout on Doubletime;
First cycle awards upped to 40 from 20; Rollout to be completed 6 months ahead of schedule
On November 23, 2009, HHS’s Office of the National of the Coordinator for Health IT quietly revealed its intention to award funds to about 40 Regional Extension Centers (RECs) in the first cycle, up from about 20 regional centers originally planned for the first round. Funding announcements for all 70 or so RECs are now scheduled to be completed in two funding cycles, instead of three, by March 31, 2010. This puts the REC funding announcements six months ahead of the original schedule. Total REC funding has also been expanded to $640 million from the $598 million originally planned.
The revised schedule on the newly posted FOA (Funding Opportunity Announcement and Grant Application Instructions) shows the first cycle of awards will be announced by January 21, 2010, a six-week delay from the original December 2009 decision date. The second and final cycle awards will be announced by March 31, 2010, a month ahead of the original second round date and six months ahead of the now cancelled third-cycle announcements.
While preliminary applications for the second cycle are still due December 22, 2009, preliminary approval has been shortened to January 5, 2010. Full applications will be due January 29, 2010, about a month ahead of schedule.
Both the quality of the initial applications and the increasingly apparent need to put facts on the ground to build the momentum necessary to meet ARRA requirements may have contributed to this dramatic speedup of the process.
Health Information Technology Extension Program
Excerpted from ONC Web site on 11/24/09
Updated 11/23/09 Funding Opportunity Announcement:
Health Information Technology Extension Program: Regional Centers Cooperative Agreement Program [doc]
“To see the full announcement, go to http://www.grants.gov/search/basic.do and search for CFDA# 93.718 – please note that, when accessing the opportunity announcement from grants.gov, Attachment 1 is embedded in the same download file as the rest of the Funding Opportunity Announcement, following the appendices.”
“Due to the competitive nature of the Health Information Technology Regional Extension Centers funding opportunity, Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology is unable to provide individual responses to specific questions regarding grant proposal requirements, review, selection, or award. We will post answers to frequently asked and/or generally applicable questions on the Health Information Technology Extension Program section of the ONC programmatic Web site at: http://healthit.hhs.gov/extensionprogram. ”
Key Dates and Submission Times,
excerpted from the FOA released on November 23, 2009:
|
Initial Cycle |
Approx Funding |
Preliminary Application |
Preliminary Approval |
Full Applications |
Anticipated Awards Date |
| 1 | $350,000,000* | September 8, 2009 | September 29, 2009 | November 3, 2009 | January 21 2010 |
| 2 | $290,000,000* | December 22, 2009 | January 5th 2010 | January 29th , 2010 | March 31st 2010 |
| 3 | This cycle will be canceled and the funds will be reallocated to the first two cycles | ||||
| * The approximate funding for this announcement is increased by $43 million. | |||||
