Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) intends to position Maryland as a national leader for health IT by 2012, a goal he announced on Tuesday at a roundtable forum with Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown (D), medical system presidents, hospital CEOs and state officials, Healthcare IT News reports.
O'Malley's plan is based on several initiatives, including:
- Creating a statewide, secure electronic health information network that puts the interests of patients first;
- Promoting the adoption of electronic health records;
- Generating EHR incentives for health care providers;
- Encouraging public schools and the business community to take advantage of health IT opportunities;
- Maximizing federal funding from the new health reform law and from the 2009 economic stimulus package; and
- Recruiting for jobs in the health IT industry in order to increase the amount of workers from about 219,000 statewide currently to around 264,000 by 2018.
Brown is working with Chesapeake Regional Information System for Our Patients -- a not-for-profit group made up of hospitals and health systems -- to ensure patient data within the state's health information exchange are accessible for all health care providers (Merrill, Healthcare IT News, 7/21).
O'Malley aims to launch an information exchange system by September (Mullin, Baltimore Business Journal, 7/21).