$27 Billion in HIT Funding Authorized: How Can It Be Put to Best Use?

For Immediate Release

January 13, 2011

$27 Billion in HIT Funding Authorized: How Can It Be Put to Best Use?

David Blumenthal, MD, MPP, to Headline AJMC’sHealth Information Technology Live Event at National Press Club on January 20

Plainsboro, NJ— It has been nearly 2 years since Congress and the Obama Administration passed the HITECH Act, which authorized $27 billion in new funding to support the meaningful use of health information technology (HIT). Since that time, there has been a dramatic growth of interest in the potential for HIT to improve health and healthcare delivery. Many see HIT as the most important component of improving care while lowering costs.

On January 20, 2011, The American Journal of Managed Care will host a live event on the impact of HIT on all healthcare stakeholders.The event, The Future of Healthcare Innovations and Health Information Technology, will be hosted by David Blumenthal, MD, MPP, the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, and co-hosted by Sachin Jain, MD, MBA, from the Office of the National Coordinator and Mark Fendrick, MD, co-Editor-in-Chief of AJMC. The event will take place at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., at 10:30 a.m.

The live event will include brief presentations by several of the authors of the AJMC special issue and a question-and-answer session. Panelists and guests will include policymakers, payers, providers, pharmaceutical companies, health IT vendors, health services researchers, patients, and medical educators, discussing the future of this industry. “Everyone involved in caring for patients would benefit from this special issue and from attending the live event, which will take a deeper look at how innovation can and will drive improvements in patient care,” said Mike Hennessy, Chairman and CEO of MJH & Associates, which publishes AJMC.

The special issue and live event are both sponsored by GlaxoSmithKline. The event is open to members of the press and to invited guests: http://www.ajmc.com/hit-registration. The special issue can be viewed online at http://www.ajmc.com/supplement/managed-care/2010/AJMC_10dec_HIT.

“For years, experts have speculated on the opportunities for broad adoption of HIT to improve health care delivery,” said Dr. Jain, who in addition to co-hosting the event was the guest editor of the AJMC HIT special issue. “With passage of the HITECH Act, this speculation has grown into an ongoing, multi-sector, industry wide transformation. This event will shed light on this transformation and give additional direction to innovators who seek to participate in it.”

“We are very pleased that AJMC is the venue in which the opportunities and challenges of health information technology are discussed by a broad array of health care stakeholders,” said Fendrick, who is also co-director of the University of Michigan’s Center for Value-Based Insurance Design and professor of Health Management and Policy in the School of Public Health.

AboutThe American Journal of Managed Care

The American Journal of Managed Care is an independent, peer-reviewed publication dedicated to publishing original research in healthcare outcomes and creating a forum for scientific communication in the ever-evolving field of healthcare delivery. The journal is indexed in MEDLINE/PUBMED. AJMC is published by the Intellisphere Managed Market Group, which is owned by MJH & Associates.

For more information, contact Tobin Sharp, Editorial Director, at 609.716.7777, or at tsharp@ajpblive.com