Abstract
Background/Aims To encourage the adoption and “meaningful use” (MU) of electronic health records (EHRs) as part of health care reform and the ARRA stimulus legislation, the federal government is providing financial incentives to providers who adopt certified EHRs and meet criteria for their meaningful use. The federal Health Information Technology (HIT) Regional Extension Center (REC) program was created to provide technical assistance (TA) to priority primary care providers (PPCPs) in small practices to help them adopt EHRs and qualify for MU incentives. The New Mexico HITREC is one of 62 nationally, each of which will assist 1000+ providers. Such groundbreaking incentives and assistance present a potential EHR “tipping point” for small practices.
Methods NM HITREC recently began to address its goals for the two year funding: Outreach to educate providers through conferences, presentations, and one-on-one contacts concerning the MU criteria and incentives and the benefits of the TA available through the REC; recruitment of PPCPs willing to adopt EHRs and receive HITREC assistance; promotion of HIT workforce training programs; assisting providers with selecting and implementing EHRs; connecting to the state’s health information exchange; using EHRs for performance measurement and other MU criteria; sharing effective tools with other RECs; and participating in local and national evaluation efforts. New one-on-one recruitment procedures have been undertaken recently and are proving more effective.
Results NM HITREC is in its early months of recruitment, and has signed approximately one fourth of the potential providers as of November 1, 2010. This number is under the goal set for this stage, but the rate of recruitment has been increasing using the new recruitment techniques. It is anticipated that 800 or more will be recruited by late March, 2011. These results will be reported at the March conference, along with early EHR implementation successes and insights.
Conclusions It is anticipated that the experience gained by the RECs will expedite the implementation of EHRs in small practices and provide guidance even to large and specialty practices seeking to achieve MU. This in turn should have a transformational effect on quality and efficiency for providers in all practices.
