Meaningful Use and Critical Access Hospitals. A Primer on HIT Adoption in the Rural Health Care Setting.

摘要

In the fall of 2007, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), Office of Rural Health Policy (ORHP) utilized $25 million in one-time funding to support 16 rural grantees to develop and implement HIT pilot networks in an 18-month timeframe. OHRP funded grantees through its Medicare Rural Hospital Flexibility (Flex) Critical Access Hospital (CAH) Health Information Technology (HIT) Network Implementation Program, which promotes the implementation of HIT in CAHs and their associated network of providers in States that are current Medicare Flex grantees. The grantees were charged with designing, creating, and implementing functional pilot networks to improve coordination of care in their communities, and provide lessons learned for future providers and networks in adopting HIT. This Primer is focused on providing CAHs with an introduction on a broad spectrum of HIT adoption issues and considerations, in addition to identifying open-ended questions that can help CAHs further define their own roadmap for adoption. Topics include evaluating organizational readiness, assembling multidisciplinary teams, reviewing current processes and identifying goals and objectives necessary to effectively prepare the CAH to manage the change process associated with HIT adoption.