In the Bush administration's proposed $2.77 trillion budget for fiscal 2007, promoting health information technology is described as a "high priority," and efforts to accelerate health IT adoption are being allocated $169 million.
Of this amount, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, or ONCHIT, will receive $116 million; $50 million for health IT initiatives will come from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's budget; and $3 million will come from the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation.
According to budget documents, activities that will be paid for with this money include:• Promoting interoperability by developing, maintaining and refining harmonized industrywide standards;• Developing working prototypes of electronic health records in priority areas such as chronic-disease management and ambulatory care and for the standardized capture of laboratory test data;• Working with the CMS to advance the national use of electronic prescriptions;• Continuing to address privacy and security issues.
