There are now 62 federally funded Regional Extension Centers (RECs) that will help you and your peers achieve meaningful use with electronic health record (EHR) systems, HHS announced today.
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) selected two additional organizations that will cover Orange County, Calif. and the entire state of New Hampshire. They are the CalOptima Foundation and Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative, respectively.
"The selection of these final awardees means that Regional Extension Centers are now in place in every region of our country to help health providers make the switch from paper-based medical practice to electronic health records," said David Blumenthal, MD, ONC chief, in a prepared statement. "For primary care physicians and smaller hospitals in particular, the RECs will be an important resource to help meet the challenges of adopting EHRs and using them to deliver better care. The RECs can also be important in helping providers make full use of the potential of EHRs for improving care and making medical practices work more effectively and efficiently."
Remember: RECs are supposed to help practices with all aspects of achieving meaningful use, from choosing and implementing the right EHR system to offering provider education on reporting various required measures and meeting criteria in the HHS final rule.
RECs were created in 2009 as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which is commonly referred to as the stimulus act. HHS is set to dole out $677 million over the next two years to fund RECs, which now cover every part of the country.
RECs are required to aid a certain number of primary care providers in order to receive HHS funding, however each REC can devise its own payment system, often at nominal rates for primary care groups and higher rates for specialists.
Check out our previous coverage of RECs and what they do, and get the full list of the RECs at http://www.HealthIT.hhs.gov/programs/REC.