ONC extends funding for 3 programs

The Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for Health IT is accelerating progress with new funding for three existing programs, wrote David Blumenthal, MD, the National Coordinator for Health IT in a recent letter on the ONC website.

Additional funding added this month includes:
  • $32 million for regional extension centers, to accelerate outreach to healthcare providers to encourage registration for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Incentive Programs and to deliver more support in the field as providers adopt health IT in their practices.
  • $16 million, to be distributed in 10 awards of $1 million to $2 million each, to State Health Information Exchange Cooperative Agreement Program grantees, to develop solutions in key areas: achieving specific health goals, improving care transitions, consumer-mediated information exchange, enhanced querying for patient care and fostering distributed population-level analytics.
  • $32 million in second-year funding to continue academic health IT programs training the specialists needed to make rapid adoption and meaningful use possible. 

“We remain on track to ramp up and graduate an estimated 10,500 students a year through our community college programs,” Blumenthal wrote.

More information about the ONC awards and funding can be found here.

 

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