ONC Launches Second State Level MU Challenge
April 10, 2013
HHS has launched a second year of a friendly competition between the states and U.S. territories to give them incentives to promote the adoption and meaningful use of health information technology among their citizens and organizations.
Called the State Meaningful Use Acceleration Challenge 2.0, the competition was announced this week on the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology’s blog, Health IT Buzz.
In this year’s challenge, the ONC will compare states and U.S. territories on their cumulative total numbers of eligible professionals, eligible hospitals and rural providers receiving EHR incentive payments for meeting meaningful-use criteria since the program, created under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, began making payments in 2011. It also will look at the numbers of new providers paid in 2013.
“This will allow us to recognize those states that see huge growth in EHR adoption and meeting meaningful-use criteria this year,” an ONC statement on the website said.
State-by-state results will be posted during the year on the ONC Dashboard.
Last year, Maine, Ohio and Kentucky were honored by the ONC for their efforts to promote health information technology adoption and exchange.
Article written by Joseph Conn
