Louisiana Health Care Quality Forum Recruits More Than 200 for EHR Demonstration Project

The Louisiana Health Care Quality Forum has successfully assisted the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in recruiting more than 200 Louisiana physician practices eligible for the CMS Electronic Health Records Demonstration Project. To be properly conducted, the project requires participation by 200 small- to medium-sized primary care physician practices. Louisiana is one of only 12 sites chosen to participate in the implementation of the five-year CMS demonstration project, which encourages practices to use electronic health records (EHR) to improve the quality of patient care. The total project reimbursements for participating practices in the state could equal $29 million during the five-year period.

A total of 238 Louisiana physician practices applied for the CMS EHR Demonstration Project. After CMS reviewed the applications, 204 practices were deemed eligible for participation in the project. Currently, the federal agency is conducting its random selection phase to determine the 100 practices that will be placed into the control group, which receives no enhanced reimbursement from CMS and the other 100 practices that will be placed into the treatment group with enhanced CMS reimbursement. CMS will notify (via postal mail) all participating practices of their assignments in late March 2009. The Quality Forum and its stakeholders have pledged to assist both groups with implementation of EHR and quality measurement throughout the five-year project period. 

 

Source: Healthcare Journal of Baton Rouge