Assessment of Health IT and Data Exchange in Safety Net Providers

This report reviews important lessons learned from the experience of network-enabled health IT adoption among federally funded health centers. It reviews challenges and opportunities associated with adoption of health IT, perceived costs and benefits and the experiences of providers working to leverage health IT to improve quality and efficiency of care. It also addresses the nature of support and technical assistance required at various stages of health IT adoption and the role networks have played in addressing those needs among federally funded health centers. The report focuses on areas that represent challenges and opportunities for officials responsible for implementing the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) provisions designed to provide additional reimbursement and technical assistance resources to motivate meaningful use of health IT among all providers in the United States. To inform the report, several site visits were conducted between August 2008 and April 2009. The site visits included discussions with leadership and staff from nine health center networks, over 30 federally funded health centers and over 100 individuals across all organizations. [112 PDF pages]