Maryland's Regional Extension Center Assisting Hundreds of Primary Care Providers with Transition to Electronic Health Records

BALTIMORE, Dec. 8, 2010 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Chesapeake Regional Information System for our Patients (CRISP), Maryland's Regional Extension Center for Health Information Technology (REC), has signed up its 200th clinician, a major milestone in its mission to assist 1,000 primary care providers in successfully transitioning to electronic health records (EHRs) by 2014.  Maryland Lt. Governor Anthony G. Brown formally made the announcement yesterday in a statement.  

CRISP is a private, non-profit organization whose mission is to provide safer, more timely, efficient, effective, equitable, patient-centered health care to all Marylanders through health information technology. CRISP has been designated Maryland's statewide health information exchange by the Maryland Health Care Commission and is supported through the state's unique all-payor rate setting system and with federal grant funding.

"The REC is a wonderful resource for Maryland's primary care providers and small practices. Adopting and using electronic health records will benefit patients, improve the quality of care and help clinicians maximize their incentive payments from the centers from Medicare and Medicaid services," said Lt. Governor Brown. "Governor O'Malley and I will continue to work with our health care partners to ensure that Marylanders receive quality, affordable health care. We will roll-up our sleeves to find the missing pieces of the health care puzzle so that Maryland can fully embrace health reform and remain a nationwide leader in health care."

RECs were created last year under the Health Information Technology Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.  HITECH provided approximately $2 billion nationally in new programs to provide training and technical assistance and to demonstrate the effectiveness of health information technology in supporting improvement in care.  As of December 1st, more than 22,000 primary care providers nationwide have signed on to work with 62 RECs to implement EHRs, according to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.

Maryland, CRISP and other state health care and educational institutions have received nearly $25 million dollars from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to help implement health information technology in Maryland.  Maryland was one of the first three states in early 2009 to have its State Health IT plan approved by the U.S. Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, allowing the state to move forward to implement a functional health information exchange.

The Maryland REC has partnered with state-designated Management Services Organizations (MSOs) as the mechanism for achieving widespread adoption and meaningful use of EHRs. MSOs are not merely selling a product. They offer an array of on-the-ground services to make a practice's transition as painless as possible. Each has committed to providing customers with connectivity to the wealth of clinical data on the statewide HIE. By signing up with an MSO, Maryland providers can access the following benefits:

• EHR and other relevant education and training;
• Practice and workflow redesign;
• EHR project management and implementation services;
• Assistance with connecting your EHR to the HIE; and
• Help with achieving meaningful use

"We're excited by the number of capable MSOs participating in the REC program and offering proven technology; it is a good formula for MD physicians," said David Horrocks, President of CRISP. "The relationships being forged now among MSOs and providers will be sustainable ones that will serve everyone well into the future."

MSOs are currently offering a wide range of certified EHR technologies, including, but not limited to, Agastha EHR, Allscripts MyWay, McKesson Practice Manager, RxNT EHR, GE Centricity Electronic Medical Record and Centricity Advance, Sage Intergy EHR, NextGen EHR,  Quest Diagnostics Care360 EHR, EpicCare EMR, e-MDs EHR, eClinicalWorks, , and Sevocity EHR.

CRISP's current MSO partners are:

• Agastha, Inc. (www.agastha.com)
• Anne Arundel Health System (www.aahs.org)
• AVS Medical (www.avsmedical.com)
• Children's IQ Network (www.childrensnational.org)
• Community Health Integrated Partnership (www.chipmd.org)
• D'Souza & Associates (www.dsouzainc.com)
• Erickson IT (www.ericksonit.com)
• Frederick Memorial Health (www.fmh.org)
• Greater Baltimore Medical Center (www.gbmc.org)
• MedPlus, a Quest Diagnostics Company (www.medplus.com)
• Mosaic Technologies (www.mosaictechnologies.com)
• RxNT (www.rxnt.com)
• Sydian Solutions (www.emds.com)
• Wavelength Information Services (www.wavelengthis.com)
• ZaneNet Connect (www.zanenetconnect.com)

To learn more about CRISP and how it is enabling the adoption and meaningful use of health information technology in Maryland, please visit www.crisphealth.org.

About CRISP

CRISP is a private, non-profit organization whose mission is to provide safer, more timely, efficient, effective, equitable, patient-centered health care to all Marylanders through health information technology.  With support from a broad coalition of stakeholders in the state's government, healthcare and technology sectors, CRISP has been designated Maryland's statewide health information exchange by the Maryland Health Care Commission; the HIE is currently being deployed.  CRISP is also serving as the regional extension center for health IT for the state of Maryland; the program's goal is to assist 1,000 Maryland priority primary care providers in becoming meaningful users of HIT by 2012.  CRISP is supported through the state's unique all-payor rate setting system and with federal grant funding.

SOURCE Chesapeake Regional Information System for our Patients