New Jersey's Regional Extension Center (NJ-HITEC)
New Jersey’s Regional Extension Center (NJ-HITEC)
Background: 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. The Office of the National Coordinator funded 62 RECs geographically dispersed across the country at a cost of $677 million. The REC’s focus is to provide assistance to: • Individual and small primary care practices • Medical practices lacking the resources to implement and maintain an EHR • 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. The REC’s services include: • Outreach and education • EHR support (vendor selection and contracting) • Technical assistance with EHR implementation • Achieving meaningful use(2)
New Jersey’s REC (NJ-HITEC): 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.
Their mission is to: 1. "Assist 5,000 NJ physicians to achieve “Meaningful Use” of an EHR within 2 years 2. Improve quality and access of healthcare delivery to NJ residents 3. Enable NJ’s 18,343 primary care providers to achieve online access to patient records 4. Reduce Healthcare Disparity 5. Organize local educational outreach activities and help desk service centers in each county 6. Partner with local and state agencies, community colleges to educate providers and consumers on the value of health IT 7. Create employment opportunities for qualified health IT personnel"(1)
The services to be provided are: • Education and training • Practice assessment • Workflow redesign • Implementation services • Meaningful use reporting
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: • “Current ONC accreditation. • Interoperability with all local Health Information Exchanges (HIEs) and Independent Delivery Networks (IDNs) specifically revealing any additional added costs or fees. • Interoperability with the New Jersey Health Information Network (NJ-HIN) with a full statement of any additional costs or fees to achieve this connection. • 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)
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.
References: 1) www.njhitec.org New Jersey HITEC 2) www.healthit.hhs.gov: REC program
Submitted by Thomas McCarrick, MD
