Sebelius announces $235 million for HIT advancement

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced a three-year, $235 million Beacon Community Cooperative Agreement Program, including $220 million to contract with up to 15 not-for-profit and government organizations that are leaders in health information technology to "generate and disseminate valuable lessons learned that will be applicable to the rest of the nation's communities."

An additional $10 million will be for evaluation and $5 million for technical assistance, according to David Blumenthal, head of HHS' Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, who joined Sebelius during a phone conference from Washington to announce the program.

Awards ranging from $10 million to $20 million each will be made in the form of “cooperative agreements” to organizations that are already “national leaders in the advancement of health IT, workflow redesign and care coordination, or quality monitoring and feedback”; that are advanced in EHR adoption and the use of health information exchange; and that have “the readiness to incorporate health IT to advance community-level care coordination and quality monitoring and feedback.”

Eligible recipients are state, county, city, township or special district governments, public and private higher education institutions, Native American tribal governments and organizations and certain other not-for-profits.