EHR Adoption

One of the key initiatives of the West Virginia Health Improvement Institute is to aid providers in the adoption and meaningful use of electronic health record systems. This is done through the institute's affiliate, the West Virginia Regional Health Information Technology Extension Center. The WVRHITEC (www.wvrhitec.org) is a federally funded project and is one of 62 non-profit organizations that are part of a national network of the EHR regional extension centers (RECs). The RECs were established in 2010 to assist eligible health centers and medical professionals as they work to implement and use certified health information technology and achieve health improvement outcomes through “meaningful use." Regional health information technology extension centers (RECs) were created out of the ARRA HITECH Action – Section 3012, and are under the U.S. DHHS Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC).

The WVRHITEC offers services/support (education, outreach, guidance) to primary care providers in West Virginia — whether or not they have adopted electronic health record systems. Technical and specialized services also are being provided. The center's objective is to help 1,000 eligible health care providers become "meaningful users" of health IT by 2014 as part of qualifying for federal health IT incentive payments (click to read more). To date, the WVRHITEC has helped nearly 900 providers reach this objective.