Academic, community health centers work to shape health IT

A group representing about 40 hospitals and 13,000 beds has come together in a lobbying coalition to help shape discussions on the health IT provisions of the federal stimulus package.

The Academic and Community Health Technology Alliance, which includes several academic medical centers and community hospitals, plans to encourage officials from HHS and ONCHIT to bear their perspectives in mind as they discuss health IT deployments. Founding members include Advocate Health Care, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, the Health Network of Chester County Hospital, Continuum Health Partners, Danbury Health Systems and the Memorial Healthcare System.

Getting these interests involved in health IT planning sounds like a good idea, given that the group's members have already invested ore than $1.2 billion in health IT projects during the past five years. Last year, these hospitals saw about 571,000 inpatient admissions and 9.6 million outpatient visits.

To learn more about the coalition:
- read this iHealthBeat.org piece

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