Difference between revisions of "IOWA"

Revision as of 21:19, 17 March 2010

For Immediate Release February 12, 2010

Contact: Deb Innis dinnis@ifmc.org 515-440-8224

                         IFMC Named Iowa’s HIT Regional Extension Center

West Des Moines, Iowa – IFMC was recently designated as Iowa’s Health Information Technology Regional Extension Center. As a HIT Regional Center IFMC will assist providers in adopting, implementing and achieving meaningful use with their electronic health records system.

Registration is currently open to eligible Iowa providers interested in participating in this opportunity, full operation begins March 31. The Regional Center will primarily provide assistance to priority primary care providers. Priority primary care providers are defined as physicians and health care professionals with prescriptive privileges (physician assistants, nurse practitioners, nurse midwives) in:

        * Individual and small group primary care practices (ten or fewer professionals with prescriptive
          privileges);

        * Public and Critical Access Hospitals;

        * Community health centers and rural health clinics; and

        * Other settings that predominantly serve uninsured, underinsured, and medically underserved
          populations.

Through the Regional Center, IFMC and our partner INConcertCare, Inc., will provide assistance to 1,200 priority providers (33 percent of Iowa’s primary care practitioners) during the first two years of the program. This includes assistance in vendor selection, group purchasing, implementation, project management, practice workflow redesign, interoperability, health information exchange, privacy and security best practices. The Regional Center will also provide education and outreach, support for local workforce development, and assessment of progress toward meaningful use. “We look forward to assisting Iowa providers in improving patient care through the use of information technology,” says Kim Downs, Senior Director at IFMC.

Recruitment and registration is currently underway. If you are interested in receiving services or learning more visit www.ifmc.org [1] or contact Susan Harr at sharr@ifmc.org or 515-440-8215.

                                                          ###

IFMC Links: Homepage: [2] FAQ [3]

Program Snapshot [4]