Federal Funds Coming to Tennessee to Improve Electronic Health Information Exchange
Friday, February 12, 2010 | 09:30am
$24 Million in Recovery Act Grants Available for Adoption, Education & Training
NASHVILLE – Gov. Phil Bredesen announced today the state of Tennessee will receive $11.7 million in Recovery Act awards to help health care providers increase the adoption and meaningful use of electronic health information technology in the state.
“Advancing health information technology in Tennessee has been a major focus of our health care efforts,” Bredesen said. “I look forward to Tennessee putting this funding to work to reduce health care costs, improve delivery and safety for our patients and providers.”
Tennessee’s award is part of $1 billion in total grants Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced today and made available through the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to make health information technologies available to hospitals and physicians.
As part of today’s announcement, QSource, the state’s Medicare quality improvement organization with offices in Memphis and Nashville, will receive $7.3 million to establish a regional extension center (REC) to aid health professionals as they work to implement and use health information technology. QSource will locate the REC in its Nashville office.
Additionally, Centerstone of Tennessee, Inc., a community-based behavioral health care provider, will receive $5 million in U.S. Department of Labor grant awards that will be used to train people in the job skills needed to access careers in health care.
This is the second health information technology grant awarded to the state of Tennessee to advance the exchange of electronic health information.
In early January, The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced Tennessee will receive $2.7 million in federal matching funds for state planning activities to implement the Recovery Act’s Medicare and Medicaid incentive program.
ABOUT THE OFFICE OF e-HEALTH INITIATIVES
The Office of e-Health Initiatives is the single coordinating authority for health information exchange in Tennessee and works to upgrade the state's health information technology to provide complete health information and improve the quality of patient care at the point of care. For more information, visit www.TN.gov/ehealth.
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