Senate approves HIT fund

Last week, the Senate approved a budget amendment that would create a reserve fund for health IT legislation. Without getting too deep into procedural stuff, the net effect of the amendment will be that when a Senator wants to file an HIT-related bill, the money will be there to back it up. Otherwise, Senators might have to do gyrations explaining how each of their individual initiatives would fund themselves. While no dollar amount has been specified for the fund, Hill staffers expect that it will provide enough money to fund HIT bills for the next five years. The same bill will also fund further development of an interoperable EMR for the departments of Defense and Veteran's Affairs, an effort that has been all but stalled for a while.

To learn more about the fund:
- read this iHealthBeat item

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