The Health IT Adoption Toolbox is a compilation of planning, implementation and evaluation resources to help community health centers and other safety net providers implement health information technology applications in their facilities. Health IT is defined as the uses of computer applications to record, store, protect, retrieve, and transfer clinical, administrative, and financial information electronically within health care settings. The ultimate goal of health IT is to improve population health and the quality and efficiency of patient care.

Developed by HHS' Health Resources and Services Administration, the toolbox includes resources that are useful for users with different levels of knowledge and at various stages of health IT implementation.  Staff from community health centers and a variety of stakeholders in the health IT arena have reviewed and contributed to the toolbox to ensure the resources are accurate, relevant, and effective in supporting health IT in health centers.

Much of the toolbox is dedicated to walking providers through the questions they should consider at various stages of implementing applications such as disease registries, electronic health records, computerized physician order entry systems and other applications.

The Health IT Adoption Toolbox serves the needs of a broad audience within health centers, safety nets and other ambulatory care providers. The toolbox is organized to support the needs of a broad group of stakeholders ranging from senior management to the staff charged with implementing health information systems. While this toolbox was developed with health centers in mind, other safety net and ambulatory care providers will find its resources useful as well.

The Health IT Adoption Toolbox is organized by 13 topic-specific modules:

1. Introduction to Health IT
2. Getting Started
3. Opportunities for Collaboration
4. Project Management and Oversight
5. Planning for Technology Implementation
6. Organizational Change Management and Training
7. System Implementation
8. Evaluating, Optimizing, and Sustaining
9. Advanced Topics
10. Open Source and Public Domain Software
11. Personal Health Records
12. Privacy and Security
13. Electronic Prescribing

While these modules cover the life cycle of a typical health IT implementation project, from learning the basics to evaluating and optimizing a system, different components of each module may be valuable to providers at various stages of implementation. Also included are modules on project management, change management, and advanced topics that offer information on some specific options that providers interested in adopting health IT might consider.  Each module contains a variety of resources ranging from sample project documentation to white papers on various topics.

There is no one "right" way to use this toolbox. For those seeking an orientation to the toolbox, skimming each of the thirteen modules will be effective for getting the "lay of the land" prior to diving into the specifics of any one area. The module-based question-and answer framework is designed to help users find the information they need at various phases of a health IT implementation project and to encourage user to ask the right questions and guide them to answers.

For additional help or more information, please visit the AHRQ National Resource Center for health IT at: http://healthit.ahrq.gov or contact HRSA's Office of Health Information Technology at HealthIT@HRSA.gov.