The new economic stimulus package in the USA aims to accelerate the adoption of electronic health record (EHR) technologies and facilitate nationwide health information exchanges (HIE) to improve the quality and coordination of care.

The stimulus package's health IT funding, about $17 billion over five years, will be made available across the next 10 years as Medicare and Medicaid payment incentives to health care providers who demonstrate "meaningful use" of EHR systems. To demonstrate meaningful use health care providers will have to:

Use Qualified EHR software systems:

Medicare and Medicaid incentive payments are not for the purchase of health IT but rather for the utilization of these systems in the care process.

Report on Clinical Quality Metrics:

Currently hospitals already report against CMS Core Measures and Joint Commission requirements. Aside from these the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for Health Information Technology, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has defined quality measures, quality reports, Clinical outcome measures, Efficiency measures, Safety measures, etc., that must be reported by healthcare providers - hospitals and physicians.

Participate in Health Information Exchanges:

The Medicare and Medicaid incentive payments are dependent in part on the ability of providers to tap into functional health information exchanges.

NewCreationIT is a leading provider of technology solutions that transform both the clinical and financial aspects of healthcare delivery. NewCreationIT will work with medical physicians and medical practices to customize and deploy EHR / EMR solutions for their medical practice at very low costs. Since we use open-source software practices will have to only pay for the services involved in customization and deployment. There are no ongoing licensing fees, etc. For a medical EMR/EHR software implementation plan and cost, please contact us at: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it