4 organizations get the last of the HIE money from HITECH

Funding under the HITECH Act, enacted in 2009 to support healthcare provider adoption of electronic health records and health information exchange, finally is just about gone.

In July 2015, enough money was still around to disperse another $38 million to 12 states or their designated entities to support more broad and secure sharing of information among consumers, providers and other entities.



The funds also supported two specific projects to develop population health strategies and workforce training on how to use new healthcare information technologies to support value-based care and new payment models.

Also See: Michigan HIE grows by meeting providers’ data transfer needs

Now, the last $2.5 million has been awarded to four health information exchanges to support expansion and routing of admission, discharge and transfer messages across existing networks leveraging existing infrastructure.

The awardees are Delaware Health Information Network ($625,000), Oregon Health Authority ($625,000), Rhode Island Quality Institute ($489,544) and Utah Health Information Network ($624,604).

Building on lessons learned, “we are asking the awardees to provide technical assistance support to improve care coordination and transitions in care between clinical and non-clinical providers across the entire care continuum,” an ONC spokesperson says.