Kentucky Gov. Ernie Fletcher (R) at the first Kentucky e-Health Summit on Friday announced plans to ask state lawmakers to allocate $4.1 million of an expected $279 million state budget surplus to helping health care providers exchange medical data electronically, the Lexington Herald-Leader reports.
Fletcher said the funds would be used to provide grants on a competitive basis to support health IT initiatives. The governor on Friday provided about $300,000 in funding to health care providers in the state to help them adopt electronic prescription systems.
Health IT would help prevent medication errors, Fletcher said. The funding later would be used to transition to electronic health records, he said (Brammer, Lexington Herald-Leader, 1/19).