Saturday, May 18, 2024
5/18/2024
Title: Oregon Health Information Technology Regional Extension Center (OHITREC) Service Area: State of Oregon (all zip codes) Applicant Name: OCHIN, Inc. Address: 707 SW Washington Street, Suite 900 Portland, OR 97205-3529 Contact: Abigail Sears, CEO Phone: 503-943-2500; Fax: 503-943-2501 Email: searsa@ochin.org Web: www.ochin.org The Oregon Health Information Technology Regional Extension Center (OHITREC) proposes to assist providers across the entire state of Oregon with a comprehensive set of technical assistance services and direct support offerings designed to ensure the successful implementation and meaningful use of Electronic Health Records (EHRs). OHITREC will leverage the proven abilities of its two lead partners ??? OCHIN, the lead applicant, and the Oregon Health & Science University, the foundational partner ??? as well as the combined experience of several independent provider associations, rural research networks, academic institutions, and technical partners to improve the quality of care provided to residents throughout the state. OHITREC will capitalize on Oregon???s sophisticated institutional knowledge for EHR implementation to accelerate the rate at which non-adopted providers come online and achieve meaningful use ??? the preconditions for clinical transformation. The adoption of EHR technology is limited by: major funding issues, concerns related to workflow changes, the inability to identify qualified information systems personnel, and fear that productivity will be reduced. Practices that have adopted EHR have largely done so by integrating with larger systems and/or health center controlled networks (HCCNs). With its team of experienced EHR implementers, informatics leaders, provider champions, and community-wide support, the OHITREC is poised to lead the way in assisting practices achieve sustainable, meaningful health information technology (HIT) use and practice redesign. OHITREC???s vision is to use HIT as a catalyst to transform the delivery of primary care services to patients across the state. OHITREC will focus on three over-arching goals: (1) Bringing EHR technology to providers in small clinics still using paper charts; (2) Helping those who have ???adopted??? EHR systems providers achieve true meaningful use; and (3) Transforming the delivery of primary care. Approximately 70 percent of Oregon (non-federal) clinicians work in practices where EHRs are present, which is high when compared to the national average of 38 percent. The remaining 30 percent of Oregon???s providers have made little or no progress toward the implementation of an EHR system. The high EHR adoption numbers in Oregon mask the low adoption of EHR by health care providers in the rural and small practice setting. Moreover, Oregon???s ???adopted??? clinicians still face significant steps to achieve the current definition of meaningful use. The OHITREC will focus on staffing the project to achieve a recruiting/marketing capacity to ensure that at least 95 percent (3,289) of the 3,462 primary care providers throughout Oregon successfully implement and achieve meaningful use of their EHR systems within the four-year period and, by so doing, achieve greater capacity for long-term quality improvement and primary care transformation. In addition to bringing EHR technologies to these providers, OHITREC will develop interoperable HIT platforms to provide clinicians, health systems, and policy-makers the information pivotal to advancing and evolving the state of Oregon???s health care systems, infrastructure, and workforce.
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).
