Twelve state Medicaid agencies are at the forefront of adopting health IT, but the level of progress and types of technologies in use vary widely, according to a report recently released by HHS' Office of Inspector General, Modern Healthcare reports.
The report found that the 12 state Medicaid agencies have adopted a total of 16 health IT initiatives, including claims-based electronic health records, e-prescribing, remote disease monitoring and personal health records.
The twelve states noted in the report are:
- Florida;
- Iowa;
- Kansas;
- Louisiana;
- Mississippi;
- Missouri;
- Montana;
- Pennsylvania;
- Tennessee;
- Vermont;
- Wisconsin; and
- Wyoming.
The report also found that 25 state agencies are in the planning and development stages of health information exchange networks.
"We are committed to working closely with our many stakeholders to ensure prudent implementation of [health IT] in a manner that detects and prevents fraud, waste and abuse in the Medicare and Medicaid programs," Inspector General Daniel Levinson said.
Based on the report's findings, the inspector general's office recommended that CMS continue to work with states and other federal agencies to help expedite health IT adoption.
David Merritt, project director for the Center for Health Transformation and the Gingrich Group, said, "All too often, HHS and leaders in the states work in isolation" and not together. He added that "Washington should learn from these (health IT) innovations and support them as much as possible" (DoBias,
Modern Healthcare, 8/21).