Maryland awards $10M for CRISP, a health IT exchange
The State of Maryland awarded $10 million to support the Chesapeake Regional Information System for our Patients (CRISP), a newly created health information technology exchange organization. Some of the biggest players in Maryland's health care industry, including Johns Hopkins, MedStar and the University of Maryland Medical System are going to participate in CRISP.
According to the Baltimore Business Journal:
Funding will come from the hospitals that will receive a slight increase in the prices they can charge patients and federal stimulus money.
The news comes as health care officials and lawmakers champion electronic medical records as a way of reducing health care costs. They argue that electronic medical records will reduce costs by hopefully eliminating unnecessary tests and reducing errors by allowing doctors to quickly access patients’ medical records.
State health insurers plan to provide incentives to hospitals, which include a lump sum payment or increased reimbursement, to adopt electronic health records.
"Maryland awards $10M for health IT exchange," Baltimore Business Journal (August 5, 2009).
