The President’s proposed FY 2015 Budget request for the HHS Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT is $75 million which is $14 million above FY 2014. The proposed budget supports meaningful use programs and a national network of organizations to assist over 145,000 providers, including over 44 percent of the nation’s total primary care providers.
The budget request for $5 million would support a public-private partnership called the Health IT Safety Center aimed at enhancing patient safety and health IT. In 2015, the Health IT Safety Center would start to collect data and analyze health IT related adverse events to provide a baseline for the types and frequencies of events.
The Center would use the funding to understand and correct patient harm related to the use of certified EHR technologies and identify and analyze health IT-related patient safety risks. ONC would work to coordinate efforts with AHRQ, Patient Safety Organizations, the Joint Commission, and FDA.
The proposed FY 2015 budget would allow ONC to provide technical assistance for health IT standards and policies in support of new payment models. Through the National Learning Consortium, ONC would be able to help providers and consumers meaningfully use certified EHR technology to improve decision-making.
The AHRQ FY 2015 $440 budget request includes $23 million for HIT research which is $6 million less than FY 2014 for the AHRQ HIT research portfolio. For FY 2015, AHRQ would provide $20 million to support 40 grants for foundational health IT research to support the meaningful use of health IT. In FY 2015, AHRQ would focus on conducting research to improve the evidence base for the effective use of health IT.
The CMS FY 2015 budget request for IT systems includes $478 million for general IT systems and for other support, including enterprise-wide software and hardware development. Funding would also support, federally-facilitated Marketplace IT systems and the Marketplace data services hub, the data center, and telecommunications infrastructure. This amount also includes $37 million for CMS IT shared services.
Go to www.hhs.gov/budget/fy2015/fy02015-budget-in-brief.pdf to view the document.