HHS Announces Additional HIT-Related Grants - April 13, 2010

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) separately announced two grants that will assist in achieving meaningful use of health information technology (HIT). First, on April 2, HHS announced awards of $84 million to 16 universities and junior colleges to help train over 50,000 new HIT professionals. In addition, four universities each received $15 million through the Strategic Health IT Advanced Research Projects Program to research barriers to adopting meaningful use of HIT. Then, on April 6, HHS announced over $267 million in grants to create 28 Regional Extension Centers (RECs), which will help health care professionals to become meaningful users of electronic health records. This is in addition to $375 million awarded in February to create 32 RECs. The RECs may now apply for additional grants from a portion of $25 million set aside to expand services to rural and critical access hospitals. All of the grants announced are funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and authorized under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act.