The Office of the National Coordinator is inviting health information exchanges (HIEs) and similar organizations to apply for 10 $100,000 grants to be awarded in March.
The grants will enable the HIEs to take part in the current trial implementations of the Nationwide Health Information Network. In that program, 10 HIEs are demonstrating interoperability and moving the NHIN toward production status.
The new participants, which may include integrated delivery systems, health record banks, special-purpose health data networks and HIEs, will implement and test the NHIN specifications and demonstrate connectivity with the others.
“Awardees shall achieve, test and demonstrate technical and trust relationships with the other participants in the NHIN through the NHIN Cooperative and when participating in the production NHIN, will add value for additional networks to also participate in the NHIN without funding support,” according to the notice of funding availability posted on the ONC Web site.
“Awardees shall work with the other awardees and contractors to cooperatively refine and implement specifications for, and trial implementations of, the NHIN,” it states. “Additionally, awardees and contractors shall test these trial implementations with each other to ensure that they can all work together to implement an interoperable ‘network of networks’ built on top of the Internet.”
The demonstration focuses on four functions:
• Patient lookup and information retrieval.
• Secure information routing and delivery.
• Provision of data for population health uses.
• Consumer managed access to appropriate information.
The participants also are implementing use cases, or scenarios, developed for the American Health Information Community as frameworks for getting data standards in place.
Besides establishing two-way communications links with the other program participants, the notice states that the HIEs will be asked to demonstrate that they can deliver information to other health organizations outside the program.
The grants are available to governmental, nonprofit and for-profit organizations, although the latter will be able to use the money only to cover costs, not to generate profits.
Applications for the grants are due March 17. The notice states that ONC expects to make an award by March 31.
Government Health IT presents Rick Friedman, director of the division of state systems for the Center for Medicaid and State Operations with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in this recent eSeminar regarding how the federal Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services is partnering with state Medicaid and health and human services officials to bring Medicaid into the digital age. Paul McCloskey, Government Health IT editor, moderates.
