Several states have won federal grants to fund information technology projects aimed at improving access to primary care for Medicaid recipients.
The grants from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are designed to reduce Medicare costs by diverting non-emergency patients from emergency rooms.
Many of the grants are for new and expanded clinic buildings to provide primary care, but in at least four of the 20 states that received grants, IT figures prominently in the projects.
New Jersey received a grant for a project that involves a Web-based referral system. In Connecticut, Gov. M. Jodi Rell announced that a grant of $793,558 will pay for installing Global Health Direct’s Web-based My Health Direct system in 10 hospital emergency rooms. Employees will use the system to make appointments for non-emergency patients at the state’s 13 federally qualified health centers.
“This grant is especially timely as we continue to look for effective ways to get the most value from our health care dollars,” Rell said in a statement. “Health care — Medicaid in particular — is by far the largest part of the state budget. Unnecessary trips to the hospital emergency room are extremely costly and entirely preventable. The initiative to be funded by this new grant represents a major step forward to relieve hospitals of routine medical care, cut Medicaid costs and provide for quality health care for residents in community settings.”
The Community Health Center Association of Connecticut will install and operate the system under a contract with the state’s Department of Social Services.
Maryland will establish three health information exchanges (HIEs), along with care management systems, under a $1.8 million grant to the state’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Each HIE will link hospitals with community partners, redirect patients who don’t require emergency services to an appropriate source of care and promote the use of clinics rather than hospitals for routine care.
Health department spokeswoman Stacy Davis said the three sites have not been selected and she could not provide details about the project because it is only in its early stages.
In South Dakota, rural patients can receive after-hours primary care through a telehealth system to be installed at three clinics. A nurse at each clinic will facilitate the care, and a doctor in an urban area will provide it. A single, centrally located doctor can care for several patients in remote locations cost-effectively without recourse to emergency rooms, the CMS announcement states.
The service will also allow for remote consultations with specialists who are not accessible in rural areas, the announcement states. South Dakota’s Department of Social Services will receive $493,000 for the project.
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.
