Chester Memorial Hospital to receive $18,000 grant to accelerate implementation of electronic health records
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[U. S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) today announced that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has awarded #360,000 in funding to the Illinois Health Information Technology Regional Extension Center, located at Northern Illinois University, to provide support and assistance to hospitals so they can quickly implement electronic health records systems. The funding will be distributed to 60 Illinois hospitals and rural health centers around the state - each facility will receive an $18,000 grant.
"Because they can be shared instantaneously with multiple doctors and can be transmitted hundreds of miles in seconds, electronic health records are an effective tool for improving the quality of health care and saving lives," said Durbin. "Today's funding will help achieve President Obama's goal of adopting a nationwide health information technology infrastructure."
Today, the HHS's Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology awarded $12 million in funding to health centers nationwide for technical support assistance to help critical access hospitals and rural hospitals adopt and become meaningful users of certified health information technology.
The funding will come through HHS's Regional Extension Center program which provides a wide range of support services to the 1,777 critical access and rural hospitals in 41 states and the nationwide Indian Country, headquartered in the District of Columbia, to help them qualify for substantial electronic health records incentive payments from Medicare and Medicaid.
The following local hospitals will receive an $18,000 grant: Memorial Hospital in Chester; Red Bud Regional Hospital in Red Bud; and Sparta Community Hospital in Sparta.