The Health Information Technology Public Utility Act, S. 890, would make grants available to help safety-net providers fully implement the VistA system of the Department of Veterans Affairs or the Resource and Patient Management System of the Indian Health Service.
The bill would authorize creation of the Federal Consolidated Health Information Technology Board to oversee the grants and other components of the initiative. The board would be established within the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology in the Department of Health and Human Services.
The board would work with existing VistA and RPMS user groups to ensure continuing efforts to achieve interoperability among the systems. It would oversee timely updates of the systems, as well as initiatives to integrate them with records and billing systems used under Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program.
The legislation would authorize a total of $7 billion for grants from 2010 through 2014. Rockefeller is chair of the Finance Committee's health subcommittee. The legislation was referred to the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Full text of S. 890 soon will be available at congress.gov.
--Joseph Goedert
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