ONC offers new long-term care content
Although long-term care providers are not eligible for the Meaningful Use program, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) has a new web page designed to help them benefit from other federal initiatives to accelerate health IT adoption.
These include Beacon Community programs to enable nursing facilities to share patient information digitally with a health information exchange with or without an EHR, development of standards to support data exchange including transfer of care datasets, and Challenge Grants that are funding programs to improve long-term and post-acute care transitions, according to a web post.According to ONC, increased adoption of IT within long-term care is necessary to improve care coordination and population health, particularly in improving care transitions. That’s where 60 percent of medication errors occur, according to the agency.
Editor Beth earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and master’s in health communication. She has worked in hospital, academic and publishing settings over the past 20 years. Beth joined TriMed in 2005, as editor of CMIO and Clinical Innovation + Technology. When not covering all things related to health IT, she spends time with her husband and three children.