HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt:named 12 communities: CMS EHR Demonstration project

Congratulations and good luck!
We New Yorkers anxiously await expansion of the project. SV

HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt today named 12 communities that will participate in a national Medicare demonstration project that provides incentive payments to physicians for using certified electronic health records (EHR) to improve the quality of patient care. The five-year, first-of-its-kind project is expected to improve the quality of care provided to an estimated 3.6 million Americans.

“The use of electronic health records, and of health information technology as a whole, has the ability to transform the way health care is delivered in our nation,” Secretary Leavitt said. “We believe that EHRs can help physicians deliver better, more efficient care for their patients, in part by reducing medical errors. This project is designed to demonstrate these benefits and help increase the use of this technology in practices where adoption has been the slowest – at the individual physician and small practice level.”

The communities selected to work with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on the EHR demonstration project range from county- and state- level to multi-state collaborations. They include:

Alabama
Delaware
Jacksonville, FL (multi-county)
Georgia
Maine
Louisiana
Maryland/Washington, DC
Oklahoma
Pittsburgh, PA (multi-county)
South Dakota (multi-state)
Virginia
Madison, WI (multi-county)

HHS.GOV