At the Southern California Health Care Summit last week, National Coordinator for Health IT David Blumenthal discussed how regional health IT extension centers will aim to help health care providers become "meaningful users" of health IT by 2011 so they can qualify for federal health IT stimulus funding, the San Bernardino County Sun reports.
Blumenthal noted that the federal economic stimulus package allocated nearly $700 million to form a nationwide network of "local health care geek squads."
The health IT extension center program is patterned after the federal agriculture extension service created nearly a century ago, the County Sun reports.
Similar to how the agricultural extension centers help farmers address pesticide, crop and land use issues, the new health IT extension centers would help health care providers "not just get computers, not just store the information, but use the information," Blumenthal said.
The first health IT extension center should be announced before the end of the year, according to Blumenthal (Steinberg, San Bernardino County Sun, 10/29).