The American Recovery And Reinvestment Act

In 2009, the HITECH Act was formulated to increase the implementation of EHR’s and reinforcing technology with the U.S. The HITECH was signed into law and it is considered as a portion of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. THE HITECH ACT provided the ONC the right to administer and place standards on the stimulus program. Also, it created grants designed for training centers for the employees that needed to reinforce and support all new health IT foundation within the healthcare organizations.

In order to accelerate the use of health information technology, the U.S. government enacted the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

HITECH act is part of the ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment) Act of 2009 designed to promote the adoption of Health information Technology (HIT) and meaningful use of the HIT. The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and CMS have spent more than 25.9 billion under the HITECH act to create the HIT infrastructure and a nationwide network for Electronic Health Records (EHR). According to Washington Post, as much 36.5 billion has been spent toward incentives and EHR infrastructure.

Meaningful used is defined as the set of standards by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) incentive programs that governs the use of the electronic health record (EHR) and allows eligible providers and hospitals to earn incentive payments by meeting specific criteria (Baker, 2013, p. 607). This paper will provide an overview of the Meaningful Use program and an analysis of the implications for nurses, nursing, national health policy, patient outcomes and population health associated with the collection and use of Meaningful Use core criteria. This paper will include an overview of Meaningful Use, Analysis, Meaningful Use recommendations and Conclusion.

In 2009, the U.S. Government passed The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, to promote the adoption and meaningful use of health information technology (Mangalmurti, Murtagh and Mello 2060). The HITECH Act authorizes grants and incentives to promote the “meaningful use” of electronic health records (EHR) by providers (2060). The effect is a high commitment to a technology-led system reform, urging a renewed national commitment to building an information infrastructure to support health care delivery, consumer health, quality measurement and improvement, public accountability, clinical and health services research, and clinical

Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on February 17, 2009. President Obama signed the act into law four days later. The law directed about $150 billion in new funds to the healthcare industry. It included $87 million for Medicaid, $24.7 billion to subsidize private health insurance for people who lose or have lost their jobs, $19.2 billion for health information technology, and $10 billion for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The act also provided $650 million to support preventive medicine and wellness activities targeting health issues such as; obesity, smoking, and other risk factors for chronic diseases as well as $500 million for health professions training programs. This legislation has helped stimulate the

In 2008, the American economy broke down. Known as the Global Financial Crisis, this is widely considered to be the worst financial crisis since the 1930’s when the stock market crashed and the Great Depression hit.

In 2009, President Obama signed the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act to promote meaningful use of health information technology (Jha, 2015). Before the HITECH Act was passed, only about 17% of U.S. doctors and about 9% of U.S. hospitals were using an EHR according to Jha (2015). During 2013, the percentages increased to

As part of the 2009 Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the Obama Administration secured $4.35 billion to encourage state-led education reforms known as the Blueprint for Reform. The Blueprint for Reform was a proposal to change the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which was first established in 1965 (Rochefort and Donnelly, 2011, p4). In 2002, President George W. Bush‘s made changes to the Act by introducing his education reform plan, No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Obama‘s Blueprint for Reform proposal involves changing NCLB as well as encourage the adoption of college and career-ready student education standards (Rochefort and Donnelly, 2011, p4). One of the educational programs of the Blueprint of Reform is the Race to the Top program.

As a result, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act was enacted by the federal government in 2009 (Blumenthal, 2010). This act was to improve quality, safety, and efficiency while enhancing patient privacy

“The HITECH Act seeks to change that situation by providing each person in the United States with an EHR. In addition, a nationwide health information technology (HIT) infrastructure will be developed so that access to a person’s HER will be readily available to every healthcare provider who treats the patient, no matter where the patient may be located at the time treatment is rendered” (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2015).

The ARRA includes the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, which pursues to improve American Healthcare and patient care through an extraordinary investment in Healthcare IT (HIT). The requirements of the HITECH Act are precisely designed to work jointly to provide the necessary assistance and technical operation to providers, enable grammatical relation and organization within and among states, establish connectivity in case of emergencies, and see to it the workforce is properly trained and equipped to be meaningful users of certified Electronic Health Records (EHRs). These computer software products are designed collaboratively to intensify the footing for every American to profit from an electronic health record (EHR) as part of a modernized, interrelated, and vastly improved grouping of care delivery.

In 2008, the housing market crashed, businesses were failing, and people were losing their jobs. This is how Barack Obama started off his presidency. Already, fingers were being pointed and cries were maybe. This would be the start off to Obama’s presidency. His creation of the Stimulus Package created a lot of criticism, but at the end of the day, it fixed the economy. Now Obama is ending his presidency with a flourishing economy and GDP Growth. Even if the Stimulus Package was one of the most criticized plans in his presidency, it did exactly what it was meant for, which was to fix the economy and create growth.

The goal in healthcare today is to achieve better patient outcomes. Technology is changing daily that affects how patient care is provided. As the world around us continues to move into a more advanced technology based healthcare system incentives are offered to qualifying healthcare entities, provided they are utilizing approved health information technology (IT) to comply with standards set by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) (Jones, Rudin, Perry, & Shekelle, 2014). Standards such as meaningful use help ensure with the use of electronic health records (EHR) that patients are receiving quality care (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], n.d.). This paper will define and discuss the importance and implications of meaningful use relating to healthcare. Several key points will be discussed including an overview of meaningful use, analysis, further recommendations and a conclusion.

In 2009, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act passed as a result of President Obama signing into law the American Recovery and Investment Act (ARRA) (Wallace, Zimmer, Possanza, Giannini, & Solomon, 2013). Not to be confused with the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Civic impulse, 2004), the ARRA was an economic stimulus package that appropriated nearly seven hundred eighty seven billion dollars to create jobs, restore economic growth, and strengthen America’s ecosystem (Herring & Schaffer, 2011). A significant portion of the budget was allocated for healthcare reform, specifically as it related to health information technology. Physicians and hospitals were incentivized to