The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Management has awarded the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center F. Marie Hall Institute for Rural and Community Health $6,666,296 to establish the West Texas Health Information Technology Regional Extension Center (West Texas HIT Center).
The center will help physicians and other primary care providers adopt and use electronic health records in their practices. The program helps physicians enroll for incentive payments to defray costs of the systems that promise better efficiency, fewer errors and less reliance on paper files that can be lost or stolen.
The goal of the program is to help modernize the records in physician offices to meet the White House's goal for all Americans to have access to electronic medical records or e-records by 2014. Billy Philips, Ph.D., vice president of the F. Marie Hall Institute for Rural and Community Health, said the West Texas HIT Center would help doctors select systems to fit their unique needs.
“This new center is a great way for TTUHSC to serve primary care physicians, nurse practitioners and physician assistants in the 108 western-most counties of Texas,” Philips said. “We hope to use the funds to make the technology easier to learn and use as well as to build an ongoing relationship with practitioners, many of whom are our alumni. This will make for a more effective system and we think it will bring better health outcomes to our region.”
The U.S. health care system is a $2.5 trillion industry. Widespread use of e-records is expected to save $10 billion dollars a year by reducing or eliminating issues such as duplicate testing. The program will help doctors give patients information on how to better manage their health and risk factors. Many believe these electronic systems will reduce medical mistakes, such as medication errors. Under the new health care reform law, doctors not using electronic records will lose a percentage of their Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement fees starting in 2015. Hospitals will be affected by these incentives and reductions under another aspect of the federal plan.
The funding will bring together expertise from all TTUHSC schools and will involve its regional campuses. The regional extension center is one of 60 — four in Texas — named by the Department of Health and Human Services nationwide and will serve up to 1,133 priority primary care providers. Philips said electronic records would help streamline administrative duties of physicians allowing them to spend more time with their patients.
“Our job will be to work with physicians and their staff to make informed choices, to ensure proper training and support from product vendors and help with reporting which helps drive reimbursements and avoid future penalties.” Philips also said that the West Texas HIT Center will work diligently to avoid unnecessary losses of productivity or disruptions in the delivery of health services.
Philips estimates to implement electronic records could cost from $25,000 to $40,000.
