Health IT Law Blog : Health IT Law Blog : Post & Schell: Law Firm : HIT & Electronic Health Records

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).

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In the economic stimulus legislation recently signed by President Obama (the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009), the U.S. Congress has provided the health care industry with more than $17 billion in incentives to acquire and implement electronic health record (EHR) technology and the associated infrastructure.

The HITECH Act (“Act”) portion of the stimulus includes major incentives for, among others:

• Hospital systems;
• Individual physician practices (not affiliated with hospitals);
• Universities and institutions of higher learning;
• Health Information Exchanges (HIEs); and
• States and certain state-designated entities.
   

In addition to the incentives, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will have broad discretion in determining the amounts of grants, loans or subsidies extended to potential beneficiaries. HHS will also propose a set of procedures for claiming or applying for such assistance, to be published in the Federal Register for comment.

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