Establishing Regional Centers to Assist Providers to Become Meaningful Users of HIT
Markle Foundation, Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), Markle Collaborators
Markle, the Center for Democracy and Technology, and others draft a description for a program to establish regional centers to assist health care providers seeking to adopt and become meaningful users of health information technology. The statement was provided to the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology at the US Department of Health and Human Services.
The Markle Foundation’s Connecting for Health public-private collaborative has since 2002 brought together leading government, industry, and health care experts to accelerate the development of a health information-sharing environment to improve the quality and cost-effectiveness of health care. Together with the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Center for Medical Consumers, Childbirth Connection, Microsoft Health Solutions Group, National Partnership for Women & Families, Mark Frisse, Vanderbilt Center for Better Health and J. Marc Overhage, Regenstrief Institute, we submitted these comments in response to HHS’ draft description of a program for establishing regional centers (Centers) to assist providers seeking to adopt and become meaningful users of health information technology.
- Clearly define the scope of Center activities to support meaningful use and American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) goals before grants are made.
- Centers should help providers use health IT to engage consumers and support their active health management.
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Broaden the definition of health IT to include health IT services and tools that support providers in achieving meaningful use.
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Tie funding to program goals, not minimum and maximum amounts per geographic area.
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Use flexible and outcome-oriented criteria to select organizations most likely to have a long-term impact.
