Pa. grants to help providers connect to information network

The Pennsylvania eHealth Partnership Authority has up to $11.8 million in onboarding grant funds available to help connect hospitals and ambulatory practices to the Authority’s Pennsylvania Patient & Provider Network (P3N).

The P3N enables electronic health information exchange (eHIE) across the state through the connection of healthcare providers to health information organizations (HIO), and the connection of HIOs to the P3N.

The onboarding grant supports private-sector HIOs by helping them increase their membership and support their sustainability models; incentivizes HIOs to join the P3N, a precondition for receiving funding; supports rapid movement toward the critical mass of participation in eHIE that will make such participation part of a new, higher standard of care; and defrays up-front costs for individual providers to join an HIO.

The funding for this program was made available through a grant from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and is being administered in partnership with the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services. Under the terms of the federal grant, CMS will provide 90 percent of the onboarding grant, with the Authority required to provide the remaining 10 percent.

“The benefits of eHIE to patients and providers are significant,” said Alix Goss, executive director of the Authority, in a release. “This grant program is critical to helping providers connect to HIOs, and HIOs connect to the P3N.”

“As more HIOs join the P3N along with their connected providers, more patients will experience better coordination of their care, faster access to their clinical results, and reduced redundancy of medical tests,” Goss said. “The bottom line for patients, providers, and the healthcare system will be improved patient safety and healthcare quality.”