HHS is providing $60 million in grants for researchers to develop so-called Strategic Health IT Advanced Research Projects to target "breakthrough advances" that overcome barriers to the adoption and meaningful use of health IT.
"Innovative research and approaches are required to overcome some of the foremost challenges we face in achieving our vision of a transformed healthcare system enabled through health IT," said David Blumenthal, MD, HHS' National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.
"The SHARP program will bring together some of the best and brightest minds in the nation to find breakthrough solutions and innovations that will eliminate barriers to adoption and, over time, increase the meaningful use of health IT to improve the health and care of all Americans," Blumenthal said.
Funding for the four-year research period will target:
Security of health IT research to develop security and risk mitigation policies and the technologies to build and preserve the public trust as health IT systems become ubiquitous.
Patient-centered cognitive support research to align health IT with the day-to-day practice of clinicians as they provide care.
Healthcare application and network platform architectures research to achieve electronic exchange and use of health IT securely, privately, and accurately.
Secondary use of electronic health record data research to improve the overall quality of healthcare, population health, and clinical research, while protecting patient privacy.
Each project will create a research agenda addressing the specific goals of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act and identify the barriers to adoption and meaningful use of heath IT. HHS expects to award qualified applicants cooperative agreements to support research efforts in these four project areas.
The researchers will implement a collaborative, interdisciplinary program addressing short-term and long-term challenges in their focus area. Additionally, the projects will develop and implement a cooperative program between researchers, healthcare providers, and other health IT sector stakeholders to incorporate results into health IT practices and products.
The funding is authorized under the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Applications are due January 25, with awards anticipated in March 2010. Information about the SHARP program can be found at http://HealthIT.HHS.gov/ and at www.grants.gov.
After a long day of acid, partisan debate, Senate Democrats held ranks early Monday in a dead-of-night procedural vote that proved they had locked in the decisive margin needed to pass a far-reaching overhaul of the nation's healthcare system. The roll was called shortly after 1 a.m., with Washington still snowbound after a weekend blizzard, and the Senate voted on party lines to cut off a Republican filibuster of a package of changes to the health care bill by the majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada. The vote was 60 to 40—a tally that is expected to be repeated four times as further procedural hurdles are cleared in the days ahead, and then once more in a dramatic, if predictable, finale tentatively scheduled for 7 p.m. on Christmas Eve.
A compromise on the healthcare overhaul that the Senate reached this weekend offered some relief for insurance companies, specifically for nonprofits that could win exemption from a new $6.7 billion tax. Part of the deal was an exemption for nonprofit insurance companies that met several requirements. One way to qualify is to spend an average of 92% of premiums on healthcare expenses. That spending measure, called a company's medical-loss ratio, is closely watched to determine how much insurers take in profits. Few companies, though, would qualify for that exemption. Goldman Sachs analyst Matt Borsch says just four insurers reached that threshold in 2008. America's Health Insurance Plans, the industry trade group, said federal data show that plans on average spend 87% of premiums on care.
The Senate nudged its health bill toward tighter restrictions on abortion coverage, a change that left advocates on both sides of the issue unsatisfied. Under a deal with Sen. Ben Nelson, women who receive a new tax credit to buy insurance would write a separate check with their own money for abortion coverage, and states would explicitly have the option of barring such coverage from plans sold on new insurance exchanges. However, the language is less sweeping than that adopted by the House in November, which abortion-rights groups interpreted as the most significant setback in Congress for their cause in many years. As it did in the House, abortion threatened to sink the healthcare bill at the last minute in the Senate. Nelson, an antiabortion Democrat, vowed to withhold his vote unless the bill included more stringent requirements to ensure no federal money goes toward paying for abortion. The debate centered around the insurance exchanges, where people who don't have coverage elsewhere will be able to comparison-shop for plans. The House language prohibits anyone who gets a tax credit from enrolling in a policy that covers abortion. The Senate would allow states in effect to match that restriction if they choose, but in other states the Senate language wouldn't be as restrictive. It says women can get the coverage if they write two checks to their insurer, one for abortion and one for everything else. The change in the Senate bill is expected to be adopted this week.
Nasty charges of bribery. Senators cut off midspeech. Accusations of politics put over patriotism. Talk of double-crosses. A nonagenarian forced to the floor after midnight for multiple procedural votes. In the heart of the holiday season, Senate Republicans and Democrats are at one another's throats as the healthcare overhaul reaches its climactic votes. A year that began with hopes of new post-partisanship has indeed produced change: Things have gotten worse. Enmity and acrimony are coursing through a debate with tremendous consequences for both sides as well as for the legislative agenda in the months ahead. The toxic atmosphere is evident on the floor, on television talk shows, and in the hallways of the Capitol. Despite the fact that Democrats appear to have the 60 votes in hand to push through their legislation, Republicans say they intend to force a series of six procedural showdowns that would keep the Senate in session right through Christmas Eve.
Buried in the deal-clinching healthcare package that Senate Democrats unveiled over the weekend is an inconspicuous proposal expanding Medicare to cover certain victims of "environmental health hazards." The intended beneficiaries are identified in a cryptic, mysterious way: individuals exposed to environmental health hazards recognized as a public health emergency in a declaration issued by the federal government on June 17. And who might those individuals be? It turns out they are people exposed to asbestos from a vermiculite mine in Libby, MT. For a decade, Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, has been trying to get the government to help them. He is in a position to deliver now because he is chairman of the Finance Committee and a principal author of the healthcare bill.