Georgia Department of Community Health Press Release:

ATLANTA –

In support for Georgia’s on-going effort to transform health care by expanding the use of Electronic Health Records (EHR) and creating the infrastructure for Health Information Exchange (HIE) at the local, state, and national levels, U.S. Health and Human Services has awarded the Georgia Department of Community Health (DCH) $13,003,003.

“We are excited about this opportunity to develop a robust system of Health Information Exchange for Georgia,” said Dr. Rhonda Medows, Commissioner, DCH. "We believe that timely, accurate, and secure exchange of health information is essential to improve patient care and care coordination, to streamline care delivery, to assess health outcomes, and to strengthen health planning efforts for our communities."

The award will be used to convene Georgia’s key health care stakeholders to develop strategic and operational plans that will guide the development of the HIE. Upon completion of the planning process or Phase I of the project, the team will move into the implementation phase or Phase II – resulting in the development of a governance structure, financial sustainability plan, and an operational HIE. Funding will be used to build the HIE and to support the development of interfaces with existing health information exchanges across Georgia.

“DCH is looking forward to working with Georgia’s health care community to create a truly interoperable, yet private and secure health information exchange that allows providers to share health information for the benefit of improving patient care and clinical efficiencies,” said Dr. Carladenise Edwards, DCH Chief of Staff and State Health Information Technology Coordinator.

This is the second Recovery Act health information technology grant awarded to the state of Georgia to advance the use of electronic health information.

In December, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced that Georgia received $3,171,328 to create a State Medicaid Health Information Technology Plan (SMHP) and complete initial planning activities related to promoting the adoption and utilization of electronic health records (EHR) among Medicaid providers.

For more information about this and other Georgia HITT Initiatives, visit www.dch.georgia.gov/gahitt.