Dive Brief:
- Last week, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced an $840-million initiative to leverage health IT to improve quality and coordination of care. Known as the Transforming Clinical Practice Initiative, the four-year endeavor is meant to identify ways to improve care through the use of health IT and quickly disseminate the information through physician networks.
- The initiative aims to fund the spread the information in two ways. One will be provider groups successful at using health IT who will work with those in need of assistance. The second is various organizations that will work to educate providers.
- Funding will be provided for expanding the use of EMRs, improving care coordination, increasing patient/physician communication and monitoring high-risk patients to avoid excessive hospitalizations. The program is expected to support approximately 150,000 providers.
Dive Insight:
According to iHealthBeat, CMS deputy administrator for Innovation and Quality Patrick Conway expects the initiative to save between $1 billion and $5 billion over its four-year cycle. The initiative could also prevent five million unnecessary hospitalizations. The CMS said in a press release that this will occur through providing doctors with better patient information, increasing medication adherence, using EMRs regularly to examine quality and efficiency information and reducing unnecessary testing.