Recently, the Pennsylvania eHealth Partnership Authority has announced $540,000 in grant funding to Home Health Agencies in Pennsylvania to increase the efficiency and improve the workflow of home health nurses.
An organization may submit only one application, in which the funding amount requested cannot exceed $180,000. Grants will be awarded on a first-come, first-served basis for acceptable applications that meet the provisions of the grant.
As a part of the grant, the home health agency is required to utilize one of the two forms of health information exchange. The first would be to utilize DIRECT which is secure email exchange between two providers. The second is the query model via one the Health Information Exchanges in the state.
One example of how the funding can be used is the home health agencies could purchase iPads and DIRECT accounts. DIRECT will then be integrated in the software that the nurses are using so they can enter the information for the patient in real time. If the patient's provider has DIRECT, the nurse will be able to communicate with the provider office. The efficiency that would be gained in this scenario would be:
Questions about the application must be submitted to: ra-paehealth@pa.gov. Applications should be sent to ra-paehealth@pa.gov by November 18, 2013.
Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act Sub-Recipient Data Sheet Appendix E
Federal Lobbying Certification and Disclosure (Appendix E)
From the PA eHealth Authority press release