HHS allots nearly $30M in ARRA funds for EHRs, health IT

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced Tuesday that $27.8 million in grants would become available, through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, to expand EHR and health IT adoption and usage in the United States.

In a statement accompanying the grant announcement, Sebelius said that the "increased use of health IT is a key to focus our reform efforts because it will help us to improve the safety and equality of healthcare generally while also cutting waste out of the system."

The funding round comes out of the $2 billion appropriated to  the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) under ARRA.

The grants will be distributed among U.S. hospitals and community healthcare centers. HHS disseminated the initiative grants in four categories:

1. EHR implementation, approximately $13.8 million;
2. High-impact EHR implementation, $8.8 million;
3. Health IT innovation, $2.6 million and
4. EHR quality improvement, $2.5 million.

According to HRSA, high-impact grants have a project period of one year and must be implemented in a minimum of 10 sites, whereas those that are not high impact have a project period of two to three years, and have no site minimum.

The grants will help healthcare workers in provide a higher level of care for patients,  prevent medical errors, increase healthcare quality and efficiency and eliminate paperwork for patients, according to David Blumenthal, MD, National Coordinator for Health IT.

HRSA Administrator Mary Wakefield, PhD, added that the new funds expanding HIT and upgrading EHR systems "will make a huge difference for health centers struggling to provide healthcare to the growing number of people in need.”