Not-for-profit Collaborates to Push EHR Adoption in Vermont

Vermont Information Technology Leaders, Inc., a not-for-profit organization that facilitates the use of electronic health records in Vermont, has entered into a partnership to further the adoption and use of electronic healthy records in the state.

The organization is partnering with Chicago-based Allscripts-Misys Healthcare Solutions.

“Vermont leads the nation in developing a sustainable blueprint for healthcare IT adoption and backing it up with strong leadership from Governor (Jim) Douglas, state agencies, and VITL,” said Vern Davenport, the president of Allscripts’s government sector.

VITL is a not-for-profit organization that provides healthcare IT infrastructure for Vermont’s Blueprint for Health, an initiative of the Vermont Department of Health to develop a statewide chronic care information system. Made up of a broad base of providers, payers, employers, patients and state agencies, VITL is largely supported by Vermont’s Health Information Technology Fund.

By collaborating with Allscripts, VITL officials are looking to accelerate the adoption of EHR systems by Vermont-based healthcare providers. They said the primary focus of the alliance is on small practices and rural physicians and finding a way to make EHR products available to these providers at lower prices.

The Blueprint for Health looks to provides Vermont care organizations with information, tools and support to manage patients’ health. VITL officials said the initiative’s structure is based on a patient centered medical home, supported by community health teams, and looks to move the main focus of healthcare from a largely reactive treatment of symptoms to a more preventative perspective.

VITL officials also said this effort is in reaction to the HITECH Act, the healthcare IT portion of the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). Beginning in 2011, physicians demonstrating “meaningful use” of healthcare IT will be eligible for $44,000 to $64,000 in subsidies from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

According to Allscripts, studies have demonstrated that effective use of EHRs can lead to a reduced number of medical errors, improved clinical quality and better patient outcomes.

Douglas and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius recently announced that Medicare will join Medicaid and private insurers in a demonstration project to improve the way healthcare is delivered. This new model will be based on Vermont’s Blueprint initiative.

Under the Blueprint model, private insurers work with Medicaid to set uniform standards for medical homes. VITL officials said the goal is to provide physicians with incentives to spend more time with their patients and offer better-coordinated, higher-quality medical care.

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