By Mary Mosquera
Rural healthcare providers should be an early focus for new health IT
extension centers, and future “beacon communities” will be a conduit for
getting those providers better access to broadband connections, the
national health IT coordinator told attendees at a recent meeting.
“We’re
hoping there will be a rural community of practice formed as part of
(the health IT extension center) process,” he said April 22 at a rural
health IT conference sponsored by the American Health Information
Management Association (AHIMA) and the Agency for Healthcare Research
and Quality (AHRQ).
The Office of the National Coordinator
(ONC) is also already working with the Departments of Agriculture and
Commerce to improve that access to broadband technology, especially
through beacon communities, he said.
ONC has awarded $643
million in grants for 60 health IT extension centers across the nation.
They will provide hands-on support in the areas where providers practice
to accelerate the adoption and meaningful use of electronic health
records (EHRs).
Under the beacon program, communities will act
as models for other areas in connectivity and meaningful use of health
IT. ONC has made available, but not yet awarded, $235 million in grants
for 15 beacon” communities, up to five of which will be rural
communities, Blumenthal said.
Those grants will help
communities that already use health IT to fund and attain specific
short-term improvements in the health of their population and the
efficiency of their health systems.
Programs like these could
help in regions like rural Mississippi, where the community health
center and the physicians in places such as Holmes County have trouble
accessing broadband unless they subscribe to satellite service. But that
is “prohibitively expensive,” said Dr. Warren Jones, health policy
professor at University of Mississippi Medical Center.
Some of
the physicians he has visited in towns with less than 10,000
populations want to be early adopters. However, rural providers practice
under significant administrative burden without adequate support.
“You’ve
got to find a way to give them support and transitional assistance that
will allow them to reorient their office practices, to better inculcate
the benefits of EHRs and allow them to continue to deliver care without
losing money,” he said.
That’s what the extension centers are
for, but they have to be held accountable to make sure they do the job,
Jones said.
He recommended surveying key small practices in
communities to determine the most significant problems that extension
centers should prioritize to assist providers. A business incubator for
small practices that can mentor and show them the steps they need to
take to adopt health IT, and provide the tools to do that, should also
be developed