$220 million ... 15 Beacon Community Awards Announced ...

Colleagues,

Today ...

U.S. Vice President Biden and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced the selection of 15 communities across the country to serve as pilot communities for eventual wide-scale use of health information technology through the $220 Beacon Community program ... Today’s awards are part of the $2 billion effort to achieve widespread meaningful use of health IT and provide for the use of an electronic health record (EHR) for each person in the United States by 2014. An additional $30 million is currently available to fund additional Beacon Community cooperative agreement awards ... An announcement to apply will be made in
the near future...

... The Beacon Communities will use health IT to bring doctors, hospitals, community health programs, federal programs and patients together to design new ways of improving quality and efficiency of healthcare ... Beacon Communities will also access existing
federal programs such as the Regional Extension Center Program, State Health Information Exchange Program, and the National Health Information Technology Research Center (HITRC) ...

The 15 Beacon communities, their awards, and key strategies are:

- Community Services Council of Tulsa, Tulsa, Okla. $12,043,948

Leverage broad community partnerships with hospitals, providers, payers, and government agencies to expand a community-wide care coordination system, which will increase appropriate referrals for cancer screenings, decrease unnecessary specialist visits and (with telemedicine) increase access to care for patients with diabetes

- Delta Health Alliance, Inc., Stoneville, Miss. $14,666,156

Focus on achieving improvements for diabetic patients by electronically linking isolated systems and practices for care management, medication therapy management and patient education

- Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems, Brewer Maine $12,749,740

Expand community connectivity, including long-term care, primary care and specialist providers, to existing Health Information Exchange and promote the use of telemedicine and patient self-management in order to improve care for elderly patients and individuals needing long-term or home care

- Geisinger Clinic, Danville, PA $16,069,110

Enhance care for patients with pulmonary disease and congestive heart failure by creating a community-wide medical home, promoting Health Information Exchange and extending Geisinger’s proven model for practice redesign to independent healthcare organizations throughout region

- HealthInsight, Salt Lake City, Utah $15,790,181

Improve Diabetes management performance measures by increasing availability, accuracy and transparency of quality reporting, leverage Intermountain Healthcare’s strategies to reduce health systems costs throughout the region, and improve public health reporting

- Indiana Health Information Exchange, INC., Indianapolis, Ind. $16,008,431

Expand the country’s largest Health Information Exchange to new community providers in order to improve cholesterol and blood sugar control for diabetic patients and reduce preventable re-admissions through telemonitoring of high risk chronic disease patients after hospital discharge

- Inland Northwest Health Services, Spokane, Wash. $15,702,479

Focus on increasing preventive services for diabetic patients in rural areas by extending Health Information Exchange and establishing anchor institutions in close proximity to remote clinics that will promulgate successes in health IT supported care coordination

- Louisiana Public Health Institute, New Orleans, La. $13,525,434

Reduce racial health disparities and improve control of diabetes and smoking cessation rates by linking technically isolated health systems, providers, and hospitals; and empower patients by increasing their access to Personal Health Records

- Mayo Clinic Rochester, d/b/a Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, Minn. $12,284,770
Enhance patient management and, reduce costs associated with hospitalization and emergency services for patients with diabetes and childhood asthma and address reduce health disparities for underserved populations and rural communities

- Rhode Island Quality Institute, Providence, R.I. $15,914,787

Improve the management of patients with diabetes through several health IT initiatives to support Rhode Island’s transition to the Patient Centered Medical Home model and adapt infrastructure proven to improve childhood immunizations in order to achieve improvements in adult
immunization rates

- Rocky Mountain Health Maintenance Organization, Grand Junction, Colo. $11,878,279

Enable robust collection of clinical data from health systems, providers, and hospitals in order to inform practice redesign to improve blood pressure control in patients with diabetes and hypertension, increase smoking cessation counseling, and reduce unnecessary emergency department utilization and hospital re-admissions

- Southern Piedmont Community Care Plan, Inc., Concord, N.C. $15,907,622

Improve care coordination for patients with diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, and asthma by engaging patients and providers in bidirectional data sharing through a Health Record Bank, empowering patients and family members to participate in self-management through patient portals, and expanding access to care managers to facilitate post-discharge planning

- The Regents of the University of California, San Diego, San Diego, Calif. $15,275,115
Expand pre-hospital emergency field care and electronic information transmission to improve outcomes for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease, empower patients to engage in their own health management through web portal and cellular telephone technology, and improve
continuity of care for veterans and military personnel through the Veterans Affairs/Department of Defense Virtual Lifetime Electronic Record initiative

- University of Hawaii at Hilo, Hilo, Hawaii $16,091,390

Implement a region-wide Health Information Exchange and Patient Health Record solution and utilize secure, internet-based care coordination and tele-monitoring tools to increase access to specialty care for patients with chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, and obesity in this rural, health-professional shortage area

- Western New York Clinical Information Exchange, Inc., Buffalo, N.Y. $16,092,485
Utilize clinical decision support tools such as registries and point-of-care alerts and reminders and innovative telemedicine solutions to improve primary and specialty care for diabetic patients, decrease preventable emergency room visits, hospitalizations and re-admissions for patients with diabetes and congestive heart failure or pneumonia, and improve immunization rates among diabetic patients

Read on at: http://Healthit.hhs.gov/Programs/Beacon.

ENJOY!

0 members like this