News Briefs: Government Updates

This roundup includes the following brief government updates:

Congress has now passed an appropriations bill for the current fiscal year. The bill includes substantial increases for some government health care agencies but only a minimal increase in training grants for family physicians.

The bill, which was approved by Congress and signed into law by President Obama in mid-March, allocates $135 million for the National Health Service Corps in the current budget year, a 9.3 percent increase from fiscal year 2008. It also provides $372 million for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality in the current fiscal year, an 11.2 percent increase from FY '08.

However, although the legislation provides a $48 million dollar increase for Title VII of the Public Health Service Act for 2009, it provides an increase of less than $1 million for Section 747 under Title VII, which provides the only federal grants for training family physicians.

The Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology, or CCHIT, will step up the development of health IT product certification in four key areas to support the implementation of the recently enacted American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Certification criteria in the areas of clinical decision support, interoperability, quality and security will be completed in CCHIT's 2009-10 development cycle rather than in 2011. That could be encouraging news for physicians who are considering purchasing electronic health records, or EHRs; they'll know if a vendor's health IT product has met CCHIT standards because it will carry the "CCHIT Certified" label.

CCHIT is an independent, nonprofit organization recognized by the federal government as an official certification body for EHR products.

If you have comments or suggestions on how to bring health care to America's uninsured children, set aside some time on April 3 to participate in an interactive webcast hosted by HHS. The online event, Affordable HealthCare for Kids: Moving Forward Without Delay, begins at 1 p.m. CDT and will run approximately one hour.

Special guests include Rima Cohen, counselor to HHS' secretary for health policy; Mary Wakefield, R.N., Ph.D., administrator, Health Resources and Services Administration; and Jackie Garner, acting director of CMS' Center for Medicaid and State Operations. Take advantage of the opportunity to submit comments and questions for the panel in advance or during the live event.