Physicians who care for rural and medically underserved populations would be among those given preference in competitive grants to implement or improve electronic health records under a bill passed by the U.S. Senate Nov. 18.
The bill, dubbed the Wired for Health Care Quality Act, S. 1418, would provide $116 million in competitive grants or state loans to individual physicians or physician groups, nonprofit hospitals, or other nonprofit health care providers. Preference for awarding grants would go to physicians or hospitals "that are located in rural, frontier and other underserved areas as determined by the Secretary" of HHS, the bill stipulates.
AAFP supports several measures in the legislation, according to Doreen Bell, government relations representative in the AAFP Division of Government Relations.
"The only problem we're concerned about is that the secretary (of HHS) gets to decide how the money is allocated," Bell said. "But that's a small bug. Overall, it's good for family doctors because it offers three specific grants that are designated for health information technology." Those grants would provide funding to physicians, nonprofit hospitals and other health care providers.
In addition to providing direct grants to physicians, the legislation would
- provide competitive grants to states for low-cost loans to physicians and others to buy or upgrade EHR systems;
- codify the Office of the National Coordinator of Information Technology within HHS;
- codify the American Health Information Collaborative (now known as the American Health Information Community), which is to advise the national coordinator and the HHS secretary on specific actions to achieve a national, interoperable health IT infrastructure; recommend standards for the electronic exchange of health information; and review existing standards for deficiencies, omissions and duplication that should be remedied; and
- direct the secretary of HHS to develop criteria ensuring uniform and consistent implementation of standards for electronic exchanges and to certify that hardware and software comply with those standards.
The Wired for Health Care Quality Act (at the Library of Congress' THOMAS Web site, type "S 1418" in the search bar after selecting "Bill Number") combines provisions of and replaces two earlier proposals. The four senators who introduced the previous bills were Sens. Michael Enzi, R-Wyo.; Ted Kennedy, D-Mass.; Bill Frist, R-Tenn.; and Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.
The Senate bill has several potential counterparts in the U.S. House. Among them is the 21st Century Health Information Act, H.R. 2234, (at the THOMAS Web site, type "HR 2234" in the search bar after selecting "Bill Number") introduced by Reps. Tim Murphy, R-Penn., and Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., which would provide
- three-year grants to regional health information organizations to fund regional health information technology plans;
- loans to these organizations “to allow health care providers, especially small physician groups, to acquire and implement electronic medical records or other technology” necessary to participate in a health information network; and
- payment adjustments for physicians who use an approved IT network.
The House bill was introduced and referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce's Subcommittee on Health, with concomitant referral to Ways and Means, on May 10.
