The California Regional Health Information Organization on Tuesday announced that it has received a $1 million grant from Sutter Health to help increase statewide access to electronic health records, particularly in rural areas, the San Francisco Business Times reports. Sutter is a not-for-profit hospital chain in Northern California.
Sutter will invest another $8.5 million in technology grants as part of an application for $958 million in tax-exempt bond financing that the state treasurer and the California Health Facilities Financing Authority approved to pay for construction, renovation and new equipment at six Sutter hospitals in Northern California. The grants will help rural hospitals connect with EHR infrastructure and support community clinics in Northern California.
"This grant will help ensure rural and small hospitals benefit from the development of this new technological infrastructure, which is vital to improving the delivery of health care in California," State Treasurer Bill Lockyer, who approved the donation, said.
Sutter's grant will help CalRHIO continue working on its state system to ensure patients "have the most complete information possible available to their care providers," according to Don Holmquest, CalRHIO's president and CEO.
CalRHIO in March selected Medicity and Perot Systems to help it build its planned $300 million statewide health data exchange. The exchange hopes to have its "backbone" created within 18 months and completed within "two to three years," Molly Coye, president and CEO of the Health Technology Center, said.
CalRHIO hopes in about two months to further discuss securing start-up funding of $30 million, the Business Times reports (Rauber, San Francisco Business Times, 6/19).