ONC Awards $38 Million to Further Nationwide Health IT Efforts

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology will be awarding $38 million to 20 organizations in 3 health information technology (IT) grant programs working to further nationwide efforts to achieve better care, smarter spending, and healthier people.

The grants improve the way providers are paid, improve and innovate care delivery, and further efforts to share information more broadly to providers, consumers, and others.

“We have made great strides in the adoption and use of health IT,” Karen DeSalvo, MD, MPH, MSc, national coordinator for health IT, said in a statement. “As we move beyond adoption to a learning health system where information is available when and where it matters most, it is important to ensure greater care coordination at the community level, and these grants provide resources to meet this goal.”

Advance Interoperable Health Information Technology Services to Support Health Information Exchange is a 2-year cooperative agreement program that awarded $29.6 million to 12 states or state designated entities for support efforts to expand the adoption of health information exchange technology, tools, and services.

The Community Health Peer Learning Program is a 2-year cooperative agreement award of $2.2 million for AcademyHealth to work with 15 communities around population health strategies.

Finally, the Workforce Training Program is a 2-year cooperative agreement program awarding 7 grantees $6.7 million to update training materials and train incumbent healthcare workers to use new health IT in a variety of settings.

“As we advance better health information sharing for better health and care, the work of these new programs will continue to become more expansive, timely, and relevant,” Dr DeSalvo and Thomas A. Mason, MD, chief medical officer of ONC, wrote in a blog post. “Under the program requirements, each effort is responsible for the continued development and sharing of interoperable health IT tools and services allowing all states, providers, and workers to have access to the resources needed to adapt to the changing health care landscape.