The implementation of health IT systems may have had greater success in larger hospitals and within big cities. At the beginning, however, rural areas had more difficulty implementing EHR technology and health IT systems. In order to ensure more clinics and hospitals in rural towns had the same technological resources, President Barack Obama announced in 2011 the development of the White House Rural Council initiative, which was led by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of Agriculture (USDA).
These federal agencies worked toward improving rural health and connecting rural medical facilities with health IT systems. Among remote and poor communities, finding the funds necessary to implement health IT systems has been a top challenge, according to the National Coordinator for Health IT Karen B. Desalvo’s latest post in HealthITBuzz. The initiative focused on developing financing solutions for these remote locations.
Between the years 2012 and 2014, HHS and the USDA were able to achieve $1 billion in revenue for financing rural healthcare among 13 states. The funding was in the form of loans and grants and was given to help rural clinics and hospitals integrate digital medical records and transition from paper charts. Additionally, the initiative encouraged physicians to exchange health information with patients and other providers as well as adopt telemedicinecapabilities.
Over the years, the initiative has brought forward cross-government collaborations and private enterprise partnerships to create solutions for implementing health IT systems across rural locations. Starting in 2012, the two federal agencies conducted a flurry of pursuits to connect funding to rural communities such as the Community Facilities grant and loan programs, the Rural Economic Development Loan & Grant Program (REDLG) program and the Distance Learning and Telemedicine (DLT) grant program.
One partner that joined this cause was the Delta Regional Authority (DRA), which developed the Rural Health IT Loan Fund and provided interest free loans to small providers across eight states. The two federal agencies also conducted workshops that brought together government and private entities together to work with healthcare providers on developing solutions for better financing of health IT within rural and underserved communities.
While there have been significant developments in implementing health IT systems among remote locations, there are still relevant issues that the healthcare industry needs to address. For example, anew survey from the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) shows that emergency room visits continue to rise after the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Three out of four emergency room physicians report that emergency visits have increased. Additionally, there has been little to no reduction with the introduction of urgent care centers, retail clinics, and telephone triage lines. Policymakers will need to work on addressing methods formanaging these rising numbers such as developing more preventive health programs and remote monitoring of patients with chronic diseases.
“There is strong evidence that Medicaid access to primary care and specialty care is not timely, leaving Medicaid patients with few options other than the emergency department,” Orlee Panitch, MD, FACEP, chair of EMAF and emergency physician for MEPHealth in Germantown, Maryland, said in the press release. “In addition, states with punitive policies toward Medicaid patients in the ER may be discouraging low-income patients with serious medical conditions from seeking necessary care, which is dangerous and wrong.”
Date: May 6, 2015