American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
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The $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act signed into law by President Barack Obama contains a wide variety of health policies, including more than $19 billion for health information technology.
The legislation will:
- Provide $17 billion toward physician incentives to invest in the adoption and use of health IT by providers who serve Medicare and Medicaid patients;
- Provide $2 billion to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC), in part to support regional health information exchanges and local health information exchange;
- Require ONC to appoint a chief privacy officer;
- Establish health IT policy and standards committees as federal advisory committees to expedite standards for interoperability and a roadmap for broad-based implementation;
- Require insurers and health care providers that participate in Medicare and Medicaid to use health IT systems that comply with national standards;
- Tap the National Institute of Standards and Technology to test health IT standards;
- Expand HIPAA medical privacy rules;
- Restrict the sale of information included in electronic health records;
- Permit state attorneys general to enforce HIPAA medical privacy and security rules; and,
- Require vendors of electronic health records to alert individuals and the Federal Trade Commission of data breaches.
The bill will also provide health IT funds for the Social Security Administration, Indian Health Service, community health centers, medical schools and other organizations. It also aims to make electronic health records available to all U.S. residents by 2014.[1] New funding is also appropriated for comparative effectiveness research.
For further information regarding the specifics of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the politics of the process and what is in store down the road, please listen to a special webcast hosted by CHT Project Director on Health Information Technology, David Merritt, and Allscripts CEO, Glen Tullman. View the slide presentation.
