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Regional Extension Centers |
Regional Extension CentersPart of the federal stimulus program is the establishment of Regional Extension Centers for the purpose of assisting physicians in adopting EHR. In Illinois two grants have been awarded. Cooperative centers will be put in place by Northwestern University for the City of Chicago, and Northern Illinois University for the remainder of the State of Illinois. These centers are to provide resources such as system selection assistance, and bulk purchase arrangements. At Technology Deltas we will work with the REC program to help obtain for our clients the best possible arrangements as they move forward with EHR. Health Information ExchangeThe basic idea behind a Health Information Exchange (HIE) is that if most of the physicians in geographic area put EHR in “data warehouse” or “cloud data base,” then they will be able to share clinical information. Clearly it takes lots of work, and addressing many issues, in order to move from vision to reality on something like this. Patient privacy and security is a key concern. Still other issues arise around proprietary interests of hospitals and insurers. All of these will need to be addressed. At this point, Illinois is in an HIE planning stage, and the state’s goal is to have a framework established for implementing an HIE by the middle of 2010. For more information about the overall Illinois HIE project, please click on the link to the right. We see the HIE as a critical cornerstone for making adoption of EHR permanent and effective. Each individual physician practice could implement EHR, and some value would be realized. However, the greatest value will be seen when lots of different practices are able to share clinical information readily and easily. That is the goal of the Illinois HIE.
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