On Wednesday, Maine Gov. John Baldacci (D) announced that the state has been awarded full approval and use of a $6.6 million federal grant to expand and coordinate health IT plans throughout the state, the Waterville Morning Sentinel reports (Richardson, Waterville Morning Sentinel, 8/25).
In March, HHS announced that the state was eligible for the $6.6 million grant over four years under a provision in the 2009 economic stimulus package intended to spur broader use of health IT.
A small portion of the funds was immediately available to the state. The remainder of the funds were contingent upon receiving approval from HHS (Bangor Daily News, 8/26).
Also in March, HealthInfoNet -- Maine's health information exchange -- was awarded $4.7 million in stimulus funds, which already are being used to help state health care providers establish health IT in their practices (Waterville Morning Sentinel, 8/25).
State officials said Maine is now the sixth state to have its health IT implementation plan approved by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (Merrill, Healthcare IT News, 8/26).