Friday, November 22, 2024
11/22/2024
The Louisiana Health Care Quality Forum (LHCQF) is the state designated agency for applying for HITECH funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). The goal of this project is to facilitate and expand the secure exchange of health information among organizations in Louisiana to improve the quality of health care delivery and ultimately the overall health of the citizens of Louisiana. The approach of the LHCQF is to use grant funds to develop strategic and operational plans in partnership with provider, payer, and community stakeholders, and then to implement those plans. The plans will include details on the implementation of five domains required to implement health information exchange (HIE). These domains are governance, finance, technical infrastructure, business and technical operations, and legal and policy. The details of implementing each of these domains will be developed during the planning process. The LHCQF envisions a hybrid structure where the governance, finance, and legal and policy domains will be provided by the LHCQF, the business and technical operations will be split between the LHCQF and project partners, and the technical infrastructure will be developed and maintained by project partners. The resulting entity for providing health information exchange in Louisiana will be called the Louisiana Health Information Exchange (LaHIE). This approach allows the LHCQF to build upon lessons learned and established relationships of a previous LaHIE pilot project. The LHCQF envisions that the strategic and operational plans will specify how existing providers and health information exchanges in Louisiana can participate in LaHIE without losing investments of time and money they have already made in HIE, and how LaHIE can participate in other regional and national HIE, including the National Health Information Network (NHIN). These plans will also provide details of the privacy and security policies and procedures to be implemented to insure protection of individual health information. The project will also name a statewide HIE coordinator within the Division of Administration who will report directly to the state???s CIO. The LHCQF will evaluate the project both internally and externally. These evaluations will provide information on the progress LaHIE is making toward promoting HIE, the management of grant funds, the appropriate levels of stakeholder participation, and the overall impact that HIE is having on the health of Louisiana???s citizens. The evaluation will also provide information to the federal government about the relative success of different approaches to implementing HIE, and the success of the grant funds in preserving and creating jobs. The ultimate outcome of the project is to improve the level of HIE in Louisiana including assisting providers in meeting meaningful use of electronic health records, and to improve the health of the population. The LHCQF is uniquely positioned and possesses the capabilities and broad stakeholder support to be successful in the effort to promote HIE, and the improved quality of health care for the citizens of Louisiana.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).
