Research and Projects: AHRQ THQIT and SRD Portfolio

Montana

Planning the Implementation of HIT in a Rural Setting

Description:  Plans the development and implementation of a health IT infrastructure throughout three rural counties including high-speed Internet access, CPOE, CDSS, EHR, and continuity of care record templates.

Abstract:  DESCRIPTION (provided by the applicant: This planning process will prepare our partnership organization to develop and implement HIT infrastructure throughout three rural counties in Montana. The intent of the partnership is to eventually include every hospital, physician, nursing home, other healthcare services provider, county health department, and emergency response provider service in its network. This network will use differing technologies to obtain high speed Internet access, including satellite connections, so that it can be extended to rural areas with differing capabilities. Such a HIT infrastructure will allow software sharing and data sharing among its participants and will enable the introduction and elaboration of computerized clinical operations and health records systems including, but not limited to, Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE), Clinical Decision Support Systems (CDSS), Continuity of Care Records (CCRs) and standard-of-care structured input Electronic Health Records (EHRs). Such systems would be designed to improve patient safety, quality of care, and clinical outcomes, reduce the cost of illness, and improve public health and emergency response services. A technical, clinical, management and financial model will be created that has the maximum potential to be reproduced in other rural areas.

Year 1 Funding:  $186,200

Estimated Total Funding:  $186,200

Principal Investigator:  William Reiter

Applicant Institution:  Community Hospital of Anaconda, Inc.

City/Town:  Anaconda, Montana

State:  Montana

Grant Number:  P20 HS14903

Category:  Planning Grants (THQIT)

Thesaurus Terms:  automated health care system, automated medical record system, health care service planning, information dissemination, rural health, Internet, computer assisted medical decision making, computer assisted patient care, data management, behavioral /social science research tag, health services research tag

Project Start Date:  Sep 30, 2004

Project End Date:  Sep 29, 2005