{"id":250,"date":"2010-05-05T09:21:44","date_gmt":"2010-05-05T16:21:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/healthit.hhs.gov\/blog\/onc\/?p=250"},"modified":"2025-06-26T20:09:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T20:09:10","slug":"onc-beacon-communities-lead-charge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/healthit.gov\/blog\/insights-updates\/onc-beacon-communities-lead-charge\/","title":{"rendered":"ONC Beacon Communities Lead the Charge"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Across the nation, in communities large and small, health information technology (health IT) innovators are boldly leading the way toward the adoption and meaningful use of electronic health records (EHRs). Yesterday, we awarded $220 million in Beacon Community cooperative agreements to 15 trailblazing community consortiums that will demonstrate how the meaningful use of electronic health records can serve as a critical foundation for achieving measurable improvement in the quality and efficiency of health care in the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Health care providers often suggest that health IT is challenging to implement, and that certain types of communities are better prepared (and funded) to reap its benefits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The 15 Beacon Communities named today, however, demonstrate the significant diversity among those who have been successful in implementing and using health IT. The areas of diversity represented in the consortiums receiving grants include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul style=\"padding-left:var(--wp--preset--spacing--40)\" class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><em>Geographic<\/em> \u2013 Beacon Communities are located from coast to coast and beyond to Hawaii<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>Population Density <\/em>\u2013 Beacon\u00a0 Communities serve both urban and rural populations<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>Populations <\/em>\u2013 Beacon programs address health disparities among minority populations, including Native American, African American, and Hispanic, among others<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Equally important, these communities are committed to demonstrating tangible outcomes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul style=\"padding-left:var(--wp--preset--spacing--40)\" class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><em>Individual Health Outcomes <\/em>\u2013 Beacon Communities\u2019 outcomes encompass a variety of disease states and treatment approaches, including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, asthma, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>Population Health outcomes \u2013 <\/em>Beacon Communities target varying dimensions of population and public health, from improved immunization and cancer screening rates, to innovations for public health surveillance<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Additionally, the <a href=\"http:\/\/healthit.hhs.gov\/beacon\">Beacon Community Program<\/a> demonstrates robust collaboration among Federal agencies.&nbsp;&nbsp; Two of the grantees seek to improve Veterans\u2019 care by leveraging the Department of Defense\u2019s and Department of Veteran Affairs\u2019 Virtual Lifetime Electronic Record (VLER) program for active duty, Guard and Reserve, retired military personnel, and eligible separated Veterans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These diverse partners will provide unique insights into best practices that can be applied to similar communities nationwide, as they strive to build a health IT infrastructure as a critical foundation for health system improvement. In doing so, the Beacon Community program will support the nationwide adoption of health IT by 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I congratulate the <a href=\"http:\/\/healthit.hhs.gov\/beacon\">Beacon Community awardees<\/a> and am confident the Beacon Communities will succeed in demonstrating the promise of health IT and facilitating other communities\u2019 adoption and meaningful use of technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2013David Blumenthal, M.D., M.P.P. \u2013 National Coordinator for Health Information Technology<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Across the nation, in communities large and small, health information technology (health IT) innovators are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":619,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_selected_menu":"","_show_breadcrumbs":"true","_blog_show_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"archived-category":[],"featured":[],"topics":[454,439,425,441],"class_list":["post-250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-insights-updates","topics-case-studies","topics-historical-programs","topics-hit-policy","topics-hitech-programs"],"acf":{"blog_authors":[{"blog_author_profiles":"198443"}],"hp_news_hide":false},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.8.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>ONC Beacon Communities Lead the Charge - ONC Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"ONC Beacon Communities lead the charge in successfully implementing EHRs and health IT. 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