New Federal HIT Content Targets Long-Term Care

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology has a new Web page for long-term care providers.

The providers, who are important in establishing improved transition of care processes, do not qualify for the electronic health records meaningful use program, but can benefit from other federal initiatives to accelerate health I.T. adoption, according to a new ONC blog posting.

These include Beacon Community programs to enable nursing facilities to share patient information digitally with a health information exchange with or without an EHR, development of standards to support data exchange including transfer of care datasets, and Challenge Grants that are funding programs to improve long-term and post-acute care transitions.

Increased adoption of information technology within long-term care is necessary to improve care coordination and population health, particularly in improving care transitions. That’s where 60 percent of medication error occur, according to ONC.

The long-term care Web page is available here.