Group Makes Health IT Spending Recommendations

The California HealthCare Foundation on Thursday plans to present recommendations on how to spend $240 million allocated by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) to support the adoption of IT strategies, Modern Healthcare reports (Benko, Modern Healthcare, 10/11).

Schwarzenegger in July signed an executive order earmarking $200 million for state health, transportation and housing agencies and an additional $40 million for rural health care IT, eWeek reports.

CHCF recommends that the funding be used to:

Ensure secure access to health information;
Improve rural health capabilities;
Provide health IT training;
Develop a statewide emergency health IT infrastructure;
Implement health IT standards; and
Create sustainable public and private funding.

"As a regulator and the largest purchaser of health care, California can have enormous influence on the successful adoption and effective use of health IT to improve the quality and delivery of care," said Sam Karp, vice president of programs for CHCF (Lawrence, eWeek, 10/10).

CHCF will present its recommendation at the eHealth Action Forum, which Schwarzenegger created through an executive order to help develop a state health IT policy agenda (Modern Healthcare, 10/11). A plan on how to use the funding based on recommendations at the eHealth Action Forum will be released in mid-December, according to Schwarzenegger (eWeek, 10/10). This is part of the California Healthline Daily Edition, a summary of health policy coverage from major news organizations. Sign up for an email subscription.