HHS $60 million funding for 'meaningful use' barriers

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) expects to award in March $60 million to universities and research centers to support the adoption and meaningful use of health information technology (IT). The Strategic Health IT Advanced Research Projects (SHARP) program is designed to address existing barriers in the following four areas:

• Security and risk mitigation policies and the technologies deemed necessary to build and preserve the public trust as health IT systems become ubiquitous.

• Patient-centered cognitive support to harness the power of health IT in a patient-focused manner and align the technology with the day-to-day practice of medicine to support clinicians as they care for patients.

• New and improved architectures necessary to achieve electronic exchange and use of health information in a secure, private, and accurate manner.

• Strategies to enhance the use of health IT in improving the overall quality of healthcare, population health, and clinical research while protecting patient privacy.

I am particularly interested to see if any of the ARRA grant money can/will be used for informatics/HIT training, either for current practitioners or for healthcare profession students (e.g., PharmD, MD, RN).