Healthcare units to receive IT incentives?

Getting IT into hospitals

In a bid to develop the Nationwide Health Information Network and ensure that hospitals utilize IT systems to the best of their ability, a new bill will give incentive payments to centers that implement them.

The bipartisan bill, put together by Rep. Pete Stark, Chair of the Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, Rep. Zack Space (D-Ohio), Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee Chair Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-N.J.) and Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas) will be known as the Electronic Health Record Incentives for Multi-Campus Hospitals Act of 2010.

Currently most hospital systems have incremental acquisition, training and implementation costs when adopting health IT systems. However, the new legislation means that the health IT incentives in the Recovery Act will address these costs and offer choices for how the centers receive the incentive payments, reflecting differences between large and small multi-campus hospital systems.

"Bringing healthcare into the 21st century"

In an open letter, the American Hospital Association Executive Vice President Richard Pollack said of the bill, "We applaud today's action that would make clear the intent of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, passed as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, to provide payment incentives in an equitable way to individual hospitals that are part of multi-campus hospital systems."

Representative Space said in response, "This legislation is important for hospitals in my district and across the state of Ohio, who haven't been getting their fair share of recovery dollars.

"This bill will help our hospitals advance their technology, improve the quality of care, and better serve their patients."

Stark concurred saying that the bill, which received support from more than 30 members of the committees on Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce, will "bring our healthcare system into the 21st century, saving money and saving lives.

"This legislation will ensure that the incentives better address the costs faced by multi-campus hospitals to promote adoption of health IT systems at these facilities."

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