Funding announced for EMR extension centers, healthcare information exhanges
Neil Versel of FierceEMR reports on August 20, 2009, “Vice President Joe Biden, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and national health IT coordinator Dr. David Blumenthal are in Chicago today to announce $1.2 billion in federal grants to promote EMR use and interoperability” out of the $2.0 billion allocated to ONC from the HITECH Stimulus funds. That’s $589 million funding allocated for grants supporting Health IT extension centers (built on Agriculture model) to assist physicians and hospitals to put EHRs in place, and $564 million to support HIEs and the national exhange network.

U.S. Grants $1.2 Billion For Electronic Health Records
Debra Sherman, reporting for Reuters and appearing in New York Times on August 20, 2009, wrote “National Coordinator for Health IT David Blumenthal said these funds will likely be granted in three cycles over the course of 2010.” “‘This is just the first wave of resources invested in health technology aimed at transforming our paper-driven system to an electronic system over the next several years,’ said (Secretary HHS Kathleen) Sebelius, who was in Chicago to unveil the grants with (Vice President Joe) Biden.”

70 Health Technology Regional Extension Centers to be Funded
How to apply for funds to be announced August 20, 2009
Bernie Monegain, Editor of Healthcare IT News, reported on August 20, 2009, “The grants include $598 million to establish 70 health information technology regional extension centers to help hospitals and clinicians and $564 million to help states improve information sharing – expected to be made available to states for developing and supporting health information exchanges (HIEs).”  Monegain also reported that details will be announced August 20, 2009 ”how to apply for the money.”