Category Archives: Hospitals

HITECH Funding Opportunities from ONC

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HITECH Funding Opportunities from ONC
These are the eight funding programs from the Office of National Coordinator (ONC) for Health IT. Excerpted from ONC Web site on Dec 22, 2009. Links for upcoming technical assistance calls or slides and transcripts where available.

Currently Available Funding Opportunities
Health Information Technology Extension Program (cycle 2)
Objective: This program provides grants for the establishment of Health Information Technology Regional Extension Centers that will offer technical assistance, guidance and information on best practices to support and accelerate health care providers’ efforts to become meaningful users of Electronic Health Records (EHRs).
Application Deadline: 
Cycle 1: Full Applications – November 3, 2009
Cycle 2: Preliminary Applications – December 22, 2009; Full Applications – January 29, 2010 

Curriculum Development Centers
Objective:  This funding opportunity, one component of the Health IT Workforce Program, will provide $10 million in grants to institutions of higher education (or consortia thereof) to support health information technology (health IT) curriculum development.
Application Deadline:  January 14, 2010 (Letter of Intent due January 4, 2010)
See slides and transcript from Dec 17, 2009 technical assistance call.

Community College Consortia to Educate Health Information Technology Professionals
Objective: This program, one component of the Health IT Workforce Program, seeks to rapidly create health IT education and training programs at Community Colleges or expand existing programs.  Community Colleges funded under this initiative will establish intensive, non-degree training programs that can be completed in six months or less.
Application Deadline:  January 22, 2010 (Letter of Intent due January 6, 2010)
Slides and Transcript from Technical Assistance Call Dec 16, 2009.

Program of Assistance for University-Based Training
Objective:  The purpose of this program, one component of the Health IT Workforce Program, is to rapidly increase the availability of individuals qualified to serve in specific health information technology professional roles requiring university-level training.  
Application Deadline:  January 25, 2010 (Letter of Intent due January 6, 2010)
Technical Assistance call on Dec 23, 2009 at 2:00 pm and Jan 5, 2009 at 3:00 pm EST plus Slides from Dec 23 call.

Competency Examination for Individuals Completing Non-Degree Training
Objective:  This funding opportunity, one component of the Health IT Workforce Program, will provide $6 million in grants to an institution of higher education (or consortia thereof) to support the development and initial administration of a set of health IT competency examinations.
Application Deadline:  January 25, 2010 (Letter of Intent due January 8, 2010)
Technical Assistance Call on Jan 6, 2010 at 1:00pm EST. Details to come.

Strategic Health IT Advanced Research Projects (SHARP) Program
Objective:  The purpose of these awards is to fund research focused on achieving breakthrough advances to address well-documented problems that have impeded adoption: 1) Security of Health Information Technology; 2) Patient-Centered Cognitive Support; 3) Healthcare Application and Network Platform Architectures; and, 4) Secondary Use of EHR Data.
Application Deadline:  January 25, 2010 (Letter of Intent due January 4, 2010)
Technical Assistance Call: Dec 22, 2009, and Jan 4, 2010 at 2:30 pm plus Slides from Dec 22 call.

Beacon Community Cooperative Agreement Program
Objective:  This program will provide funding to communities to build and strengthen their health information technology (health IT) infrastructure and exchange capabilities to demonstrate the vision of meaningful health IT.
Application Deadline:  February 1, 2010 (Letter of Intent due January 8, 2010)
Slides and Transcript from Technical Assistance Call Dec 14, 2009.
 
Closed Funding Opportunities (Pending Award)
State Health Information Exchange Cooperative Agreement Program
These grant programs will support states and/or State Designated Entities (SDEs) in establishing health information exchange (HIE) capacity among health care providers and hospitals in their jurisdictions. Such efforts at the state level will establish and implement appropriate governance, policies, and network services within the broader national framework to rapidly build capacity for connectivity between and among health care providers. State programs to promote HIE will help to realize the full potential of EHRs to improve the coordination, efficiency, and quality of care.
Awards expected in early 2010.

JAMIA: Characteristics associated with RHIO viability

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JAMIA: Characteristics associated with Regional Health Information Organization viability
In January 2010 issue of JAMIA,  the original research paper titled “Characteristics associated with Regional Health Information Organization viability” by Julia Adler-Milstein, John Landefeld, and Ashish K Jha concludes “Our work suggests that RHIOs find a broad group of stakeholders and begin with a narrow set of activities to help them get off the ground. Further, we believe that judicious use of grants, possibly through ‘matching’ mechanisms where stakeholders are also asked to contribute early, will help to ensure that RHIOs become viable and self-sustaining.”

As Joseph Goedert reported Dec 17, 2009 in HealthData Management article titled “What Makes HIEs Viable?” “Results from a national survey of regional health information organizations show simplicity and early funding commitments from participants improve viability of the initiatives.”

A December 2007 study in Health Affairs by two of the same Harvard authors examining “The State Of Regional Health Information Organizations: Current Activities And Financing” found “a substantial number of early failures, stalled efforts, and RHIOs that were heavily dependent on grants.”

Blumental Letter #6: Keeping a SHARP Focus on Innovation

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Blumental Letter #6:
Keeping a SHARP Focus on Innovation 
Plus Health IT Buzz Blog Post

Dr. David Blumenthal

Dr. David Blumenthal

December 18, 2009 (sent as email)
A Message from
Dr. David Blumenthal,
National Coordinator for Health Information Technology 
Today the Obama administration announced the availability of $60 million in Recovery Act funds to support the development of the Strategic Health IT Advanced Research Projects (SHARP) program. SHARP awards will fund research focused on identifying technology solutions to address well-documented problems impeding broad adoption of health information technology (health IT). By helping to overcome key challenges, the research will also accelerate progress towards achieving nationwide meaningful use of health IT.  

As we continue this unprecedented effort towards meaningful use and seamless, secure information exchange, we also must acknowledge that there remains a gap between the promise of health IT and the realization of its full benefits. To achieve the goal of a transformed health care delivery system, it’s critical that we close this gap by enabling a robust research infrastructure that can focus on areas where “breakthrough” advances are needed to help clear obstacles to adoption. Under the SHARP program, four awardees will receive funding to develop multidisciplinary research projects that will identify such breakthrough solutions.

SHARP program awardees will create research programs that draw from many areas of expertise.  They will focus on issues of central interest to all health IT stakeholders, fostering considerable discussion and debate.  If for example, SHARP research helped identify new methods to create tools that will, through their incorporation into deployed technology, enhance data security, then public trust in the electronic maintenance and exchange of health information would be reinforced and strengthened – which would in turn help encourage broader adoption.

Areas requiring this innovative research approach that will be tackled by the SHARP awardees include the security of health IT, patient-centered cognitive support, application and network platform architectures, and the secondary use of EHR data as a way of measuring and improving quality of care.

Another important aspect of the SHARP program is that the research projects will bring together key stakeholders – researchers, patient groups, health care providers, and others – to work with one another to transform health IT research into applications. This collaborative approach allows us to consider the many voices of health IT stakeholders, and work together towards common goals. With our eyes on the vision of patient-centered, quality health care we can focus research on innovative, pragmatic, and realistic solutions which can then be implemented across the nation.

I truly look forward to seeing the innovative research that emerges from this program. I know that this research will provide critical insights that will bring us closer every day to a better, more efficient health care delivery system, enabled by health IT and empowered by the seamless and secure exchange of electronic health information.

Sincerely,
David Blumenthal, M.D., M.P.P.
National Coordinator for Health Information Technology
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) encourages you to share this information as we work together to enhance the quality, safety and value of care and the health of all Americans through the use of electronic health records and health information technology.

For more information and to receive regular updates from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, please subscribe to our Health IT News list.
# # #

In Blumenthal’s Health IT Buzz Blog Post entitled “Innovation in Health IT: A Key Component to Improving Care” on Dec 18, 2009, he writes “Why invest in research for breakthrough advances in health IT, when we have so many communities who are just now laying the groundwork? Simply stated, because it’s important to simultaneously address both the present and the future as we establish a new paradigm for health IT.  ONC envisions a health care system that delivers higher-quality, safer, and more efficient, accessible, equitable, and convenient care enabled by health IT. Research conducted by these projects will accelerate progress towards achieving just that.” 

See the previous post on e-Healthcare Marketing for additional information on SHARP Focus on Innovation.

‘Beacon’ communities must show HIT bona fides

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‘Beacon’ communities must show HIT bona fides
Mary Mosquera reported in Government Health IT on Dec 14, 2009, “To become a ‘beacon’ community, applicants must have an established track record of using health IT to improve health care in at least one category — cost efficiency, quality of care or population health, said Dr. Farzad Mostashari, senior advisor to the Office of the National Coordinator for health IT during a Dec. 14 teleconference.”

Beacon Communities Technical Call Documents from ONC site
Slides
Transcript

–For overview of program and links to Announcment and FAQs, see this post on e-Healthcare Marketing.
–Dr. Blumenthal’s Update #5 “Beacon Communities: Shining a Light on the Real Impacts of Health IT” is also posted on e-Healthcare Marketing.

Medscape One-on-One: Rapidly Unfolding Health Information Technology

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Medscape One-on-One: Rapidly Unfolding Health IT
Video Interview with Ashish Jha, Health Policy Expert
On December 2, 2009, Medscape inaugurated a new One-on-One video Interview series, starting with its first guest Ashish Jha, a physician-scientist with the Harvard School of Public Health, whose paper in the New England Journal of Medicine earlier in 2009 pointed out the low rate of EHR implementation in the country. Jha discusses the article and the implications of the HITECH act. (Interview may require registration.)

NEJM, April 16, 2009: “Use of Electronic Health Records in U.S. Hospitals.” Written by Ashish K. Jha, MD, MPH, et. al. (Et. al. includes ONC Director David Blumenthal.) This article is available to public for free.

Ten Years After the IOM’s Landmark Patient Safety Report, How Much Progress Has Been Made? — Health Affairs

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Ten Years After the IOM’s Landmark Patient Safety Report,
How Much Progress Has Been Made?: Health Affairs
From a Health Affairs Press Release on December 1, 2009:
(Bethesda, MD) – “Ten years ago today, the Institute of Medicine released To Err Is Human, a much-discussed report that launched the modern patient-safety movement. Evaluating what has been accomplished, Robert Wachter, author of two books on patient safety and editor of the federal government’s two leading safety Web sites, gives efforts an overall grade of B-, a slight improvement from his grade of C+ when he performed a similar analysis five years ago. Wachter says that overall, the decade has seen progress in hospitals’ responses to pressures (accreditation, regulation, and error reporting), but health information technology (IT) has lagged behind, with research in the area advancing, though underfunded.”

“Patient Safety at Ten: Unmistakable Progress, Troubling Gaps”
by Robert M. Wachter
http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/abstract/hlthaff.2009.0785
Robert M. Wachter is professor and associate chair in the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

“In his analysis, Wachter looks at a multitude of categories. Some of the domains new to this report include: regulation/accreditation/reporting systems; health IT; malpractice system and accountability; workforce and training issues; research; patient engagement and involvement; provider organization leadership engagement; national and international organizational interventions; and payment system interventions. The highest grade, an A-, was given to organizational interventions thanks to what Wachter describes as stronger engagement by governmental and NGO interventions at the federal, state, and global levels. Several areas received grades of C+, including health IT, whose grade in 2004 was a higher B-, and where Wachter sees an almost static situation and “increasing evidence of health IT-related safety hazards and implementation challenges.”

“With funds directed in this area through the Obama stimulus package, Wachter anticipates future improvements in this area. Wachter cites several early missteps in the patient safety field, including the implementation of residency duty-hour reductions, without an attempt to improve procedures when residents sign out; and the national requirement to implement medication reconciliation in the absence of clear guidelines regarding how to accomplish this noble goal safely. Despite these setbacks, Wachter concludes that most changes have constituted real progress. “[E]ven our missteps…have yielded valuable lessons.” Moreover, given the massive complexity of the health care system, he writes, “… had I been asked in 1999 how much change in patient safety-related areas would be possible within a decade, I would have substantially underestimated our actual accomplishments.”"

Blumenthal Responds to Latest EHR Studies and Skeptics via ‘Health IT Buzz Blog’

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Blumenthal Responds to Latest EHR Studies and Skeptics 
via Health IT Buzz Blog: “The Evidence of HIT”
David Blumenthal, National Coordinator for Health IT, writes in the latest post (November 30, 2009) on Health IT Blog, “any bold new goal has to be reduced to practice, and skeptics are now asking appropriately whether the HIT program can succeed.  A few recent studies have raised questions about whether health care organizations that have installed electronic health records are actually realizing the expected benefits.”

While taking scientific literature seriously and listening to skeptics, Blumenthal notes the high value and incentives Congress and ONC have placed on the “meaningful use” of Electronic Health Records (EHRs)  by physicians and hospitals to “meet carefully designed new requirements for the use of EHRs that will translate into health improvements and cost reductions for the American people.”

Blumenthal concludes with examples of those bold, historic steps which continue to provide benefit:  ”successful health and social programs in American history are Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Community Health Center Program, and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.”

Healthcare Industry Takes 6 of IDG’s InfoWorld 2009 Top 100 IT Projects

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Healthcare Industry Takes 6 of  IDG’ s InfoWorld
Top 100 IT Projects of 2009
Three hospital organizations, one Pharmacy Benefits Manager, one pharmaceutical company, and the combined initiative ConnectOpenSource (by Federal Health Architecture, ONC, and HHS) capture 6 of top 100 IT projects of 2009 in annual awards from IDG’s InfoWorld as published on November 23, 2009.  (InfoWorld ‘s Alpha Listing) 

According to Jason Snyder, Features Editor, InfoWorld, “This year’s recipients of InfoWorld’s highest honor are shining examples of IT projects undertaken by tech leaders committed to pushing their organizations forward.”

Federal Government
Federal Health Architecture, Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, Department of Health and Human Services
http://www.connectopensource.org/
For Open Source Health Information Exchange Gateway   Top 100 Listing

Hospital organizations
El Centro (CA) Regional Medical Center
http://www.ecrmc.org/
For Operations Overhaul           Top 100 Listing

Halifax Health Systems (East Central Florida) http://www.halifaxhealth.org/
For Wireless Infrastructure Initiative  Top 100 Listing

University of Chicago Medical Center
www.uchospitals.edu
For SOA Records Management and Governance   Top 100 Listing

Pharmacy Benefits Manager
HealthTrans
http://www.healthtrans.com/
For Data Warehouse Initiative  Top 100 Listing

Pharmaceutical Company
Johnson & Johnson
www.jnj.com
For Social Media Employee Collaboration Platform   Top 100 Listing

Quality Not Top Priority For Nearly Half of Hospital Boards: New Survey

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New Study Shows Quality Not Top Priority for Nearly Half of Hospital Boards
From a Health Affairs Press Release: Health Affairs  published a study on November 6, 2009 “surveying a nationally representative sample of board chairs in 1,000 U.S. hospitals. The results found that just half the boards rated quality of care as one of their two top priorities and only a minority reported receiving training in quality. This is the first national study of board chairs linked to quality performance.”

“Hospital Governance And The Quality Of Care”
By Ashish K. Jha and Arnold M. Epstein
Abstract
Author affiliations:
Jha and Epstein are affiliated with the Harvard School of Public Health

“In identifying the factors that affect the quality of hospital care, leadership and governance have emerged as areas of particular interest. Since boards of directors could have an impact on quality of care, this study evaluated how hospital leadership values quality. The authors collected their data during the winter of 2007-08 by randomly selecting 1,000 institutions from a group of over 3,000 nonprofit acute care hospitals that reported quality data to the Hospital Quality Alliance (HQA) in 2007. They reached out to their board chairs, and achieved a response rate of 78.3 percent.

“Of those surveyed, a little over half identified quality as one of the two top priorities for board oversight, and only 44% reported that quality of care was important for evaluating the performance of the chief executive officer (CEO). For 63% of the institutions, quality performance was consistently an agenda item at board meetings, compared to financial performance, which was consistently on the agenda at 93% of the hospitals.

“In contrasting hospitals that had scored well in on quality measures with their lower-performing counterparts, the data revealed major differences in attitudes, priorities, and activities around quality of care. “Our data provide clear evidence of an association between an engaged board and high quality care, although we cannot yet pinpoint a causal link,” said Ashish Jha, the study’s lead author. “Most boards have primarily focused on financial issues, mistakenly assuming that their hospital’s quality of care is adequate. Major opportunities exist to shift the knowledge, training, and practices of hospital boards to promote a focus on safe, effective care.”

“This project was funded by the Hauser Center for Non-Profit Governance at Harvard Law School and the Rx Foundation.”

States Get Involved:
New Jersey Hospital Boards–Governance and Quality
In story titled ”This is a test: Exams for governance boards on quality measures could be a way to improve care, accountability in hospitals,” Modern Healthcare’s  Melanie Evans on November 16, 2009, spoke with Sally Roslow, New Jersey Hospital Association (NJHA) vice president of development and trustee relations. According to the story, NJHA ”is expected to give more weight to quality training to promote further education on the issue” in a voluntary training program for trustees on hospital governance that NJHA anticipates launching in 2010. Over 95% of New Jersey hospital boards met a new state requirement that trustees and directors attend seven hours on basic governance by August 2009.

Cheryl Clark reported in HealthLeaders Media on November 9, 2009,”Carlin Lockee, managing editor of the Governance Institute, which assists hospital boards, says she was surprised at the study’s results. She says they differ from the Institute’s similar surveys of nonprofit hospital CEOs.”

Healthcare Affiliates Unprepared For Data Breaches: HIMSS Research

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HIMSS Research: Healthcare Affiliates Unprepared For Data Breaches;
Patient privacy at risk from provider business associates
Information Week ‘s Mitch Wagner reported November 17, 2009 “About a third of business associates were not aware they needed to comply with security and privacy provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). By comparison, 87% of health providers are aware.”
Release from HIMSS Analytics on November 17, 2009: “68 Percent of Provider Respondents Indicated that the HITECH Act’s Expanded Breach Notification Requirements will Result in More Discovery and Reporting of Incidents.” “Business associates could represent a risk to healthcare organizations, especially hospitals,” said Lisa Gallagher, BSEE, CISM, CPHIMS, Senior Director, Privacy and Security, HIMSS.  “The lack of awareness of new federal regulations by business associates coupled with the large number of third parties hired by hospitals to control costs through outsourcing, points to a potential area of concern. Hospitals, in partnership with their business associates, need to actively prepare to comply with the new rules when these breaches happen.”

2009 HIMSS Analytics Report: Evaluating
HITECH’s Impact on Healthcare Privacy and Security (pdf)
Commissioned by ID Experts