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| − | New Jersey’s Regional Extension Center (NJ-HITEC)
| + | #REDIRECT [[HITREC#New_Jersey]] |
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| − | Background:
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| − | The HITECH Act authorized the development of a Health Information Technology Extension Program. The extension program provides for local extension centers known as Health Information Technology Regional Extension Centers (RECs). A national Health Information Technology Research Center (HITRC) was also established to help the RECs work collaboratively to collect and share best practices in EHR adoption, meaningful use and provider support.
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| − | The Office of the National Coordinator funded 62 RECs geographically dispersed across the country at a cost of $677 million.
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| − | The REC’s focus is to provide assistance to:
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| − | • Individual and small primary care practices
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| − | • Medical practices lacking the resources to implement and maintain an EHR
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| − | • Primary care services in public and critical access hospitals, community health centers and other settings that mostly provided services to those who lack adequate coverage or medical care.
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| − | The REC’s services include:
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| − | • Outreach and education
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| − | • EHR support (vendor selection and contracting)
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| − | • Technical assistance with EHR implementation
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| − | • Achieving meaningful use(2)
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| − | New Jersey’s REC (NJ-HITEC):
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| − | On April 6, 2010 the Office of the National Coordinator announced that the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) was appointed the REC for New Jersey and would receive more than $23 million to provide assistance to primary care providers.
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| − | Their mission is to:
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| − | 1. "Assist 5,000 NJ physicians to achieve “Meaningful Use” of an EHR within 2 years
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| − | 2. Improve quality and access of healthcare delivery to NJ residents
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| − | 3. Enable NJ’s 18,343 primary care providers to achieve online access to patient records
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| − | 4. Reduce Healthcare Disparity
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| − | 5. Organize local educational outreach activities and help desk service centers in each county
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| − | 6. Partner with local and state agencies, community colleges to educate providers and consumers on the value of health IT
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| − | 7. Create employment opportunities for qualified health IT personnel"(1)
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| − | The services to be provided are:
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| − | • Education and training
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| − | • Practice assessment
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| − | • Workflow redesign
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| − | • Implementation services
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| − | • Meaningful use reporting
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| − | Vendors: NJ-HITEC has taken a different approach from many other states and has not determined a list of recommended vendors. Instead they have decided to work with vendors who meet the following criteria:
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| − | • “Current ONC accreditation.
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| − | • Interoperability with all local Health Information Exchanges (HIEs) and Independent Delivery Networks (IDNs) specifically revealing any additional added costs or fees.
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| − | • Interoperability with the New Jersey Health Information Network (NJ-HIN) with a full statement of any additional costs or fees to achieve this connection.
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| − | • Interoperability with laboratories, PBMs and public health registries with a specific statement of any additional fees, transactional charges or costs in order for a provider to obtain this information”(1)
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| − | NJ-HITEC has contracted with several private vendors - PatientPoint, Nit Health, Complete Systems Integration and SpectraMD to help provide REC services to eligible primary care practices over the next 2 years and as of this writing is in the early stages of implementation.
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| − | References: 1) www.njhitec.org New Jersey HITEC
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| − | 2) www.healthit.hhs.gov: REC program
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| − | Submitted by Thomas McCarrick, MD
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| − | [[Category:BMI512-WINTER-11]] | + | |
