It’s the first significant investment since 2009 directly awarded to health centers to support the purchase of health information technology, the news release said.
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Health centers in the US territories and freely associated states, including Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, Northern Mariana Island, Federated States of Micronesia, Guam, the Marshall Islands, Palau, and American Samoa will also share in several million dollars to work on their health IT development.
Awardees are required to use the funds to purchase or upgrade to electronic health record systems that used Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT-certified technology.
The systems are meant to help the health centers’ transition to value-based models of care, in which medical providers receive a budget for their patient groups, then share savings with the federal government as long as they meet budget and quality targets.
“Health centers across the country are instrumental in providing high-quality, comprehensive primary health care to millions of people”, added Burwell. Today, health centers employ almost 190,000 people.
Family Health Centers is among the 22 SC health centers groups sharing $1.5 million in federal funds for health information technology enhancements.
A $61,832 grant to the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Hospital Authority and a $48,360 grant to Hamilton County were part of $1.6 million in funding awarded to 26 health centers in Tennessee, according to an announcement by Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell.
FHC will receive $72,323 to accelerate its transition to value-based models of care, improve efforts to use information to support better decisions and increase engagement in delivery system transformation.
“Health centers are evaluated on a set of performance measures emphasizing health outcomes and the value of care delivered”, said Macrae.
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The federal government awarded $1.84 million Thursday to 32 health care centers in Louisiana for health information technology improvements.
