A new grant program for small rural hospitals and qualifying health care providers will soon be available to help accelerate adoption and use of One Health Record®, Alabama’s health information exchange.
The one-time grants are designed to help qualifying provider entities purchase federally-certified products from “preferred” electronic health record (EHR) vendors. Participating vendors must agree to a fair and fixed price and will be asked to match 25 percent of the system’s cost in in-kind services, according to Health IT Program Director Gary Parker. The remaining cost will be covered by federal grant funds.
“Many of these providers are interested in participating in a robust, interoperable health information exchange,” Parker said. “However, acquiring the necessary technology is a financial and logistical challenge for these organizations.”
To qualify for these grants, the hospitals must have 60 or fewer beds and all applicants need to be located in rural areas where larger hospitals are already connected or expect to be connected within six months. Grant application dates, details and forms will be available in early May on the project’s website at www.onehealthrecord.alabama.gov.
Parker emphasized that the success of the One Health Record® effort depends heavily on the ability of providers to connect and exchange information with regional referral hospitals and their medical staff specialists.
“By concentrating our efforts on those areas served by hospitals which have connected or will soon connect to One Health Record®, we hope to jumpstart regional network development and provide opportunities for all providers to benefit from this technology,” he said.