HHS Contracts Aimed at State, Local RHIOs

The next contracts from HHS to fund development of a national health information network will not so much go to vendors of products and services that could be used by regional health information networks, but more to state and local RHIOs themselves, according to a federal official speaking at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society meeting last week in New Orleans. Robert Kolodner also said the nation is on track to make good on a Bush administration goal of making electronic health records widely available by 2014. In late 2005, HHS agreed to pay $18.6 million to four consortia of healthcare systems integrators, consultants, software developers, RHIOs and end-users to come up with prototypes of a future NHIN. The four consortia, headed by Accenture, Computer Sciences Corp., IBM Corp. and Northrop Grumman Corp., delivered their proposals in January to the American Health Information Community, HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt's IT advisory panel. The next round of contracts will focus on applying what’s been learned in the first round of prototype contracts, as opposed to focusing on architecture. The director of the office of policy and research at ONCHIT, reaffirmed that the Internal Revenue Service should soon issue guidance on gifts of healthcare IT software, training and support to affiliated physicians. The American Hospital Association has asked the IRS for the guidance so hospitals might avail themselves of exemptions and safe harbors from Stark and anti-kickback laws issued by HHS in August 2006 to promote IT support for office-based physicians.