It has taken a little while to get started and now we have some information making to the news today relative to the funding for the Regional Extension Centers from the 
National ONC group. These are groups that are not part of the government but rather are independent and receive funs to help doctors and others in their pursuit of electronic medical records. Last week I posted a video made by one center in Florida. It’s a nice overview of how they are taking care of business at the facility.
Regional Extension Center (REC) Working in Florida-What the Centers Are Doing to Help Physicians With Electronic Medical Records
They come in different shapes and sizes and some services are free and some are low cost. At the link below is some additional background on the centers and how they got started.
Health Information Technology Extension Program (REC) To Support and Help Providers Adapt and Understand Meaningful Use With EHRs
In the news today is a bit of information from one of the HIE centers in Oregon which operates in 7 states. There are a couple of software systems mentioned here, Epic and Allscripts. It appears medical record vendors have found another marketing partner with the centers offering discounts for purchase with licensing.
From the website:
“OCHIN is one of the nation’s cutting edge health information technology (HIT) and service organizations for community based clinics. This has been accomplished thru the collaborative approach to building and sharing a practice management and electronic medical record (EMR) system.”
The group also operates the O-HITEC, to assist providers across Oregon in the implementation and meaningful use of EHRs and other software applications and I believe comes under the category of being one of the REC centers, since they receive federal funds.
Is your HIE vendor/center collaborating or are they a branch of an REC assistance center too or all of the above? It kind of looks like all are becoming a bit cozy today. BD
Portland-based OCHIN operates in parts of seven states and provides a range of information technology services for its member organizations. For instance, 44 clinic systems across its network currently use integrated practice management and EHR software from Epic Systems Corp
The clinics exchange data using the vendor's Care Everywhere connectivity software to simplify Epic-to-Epic communications. During 2011 ONCHIN will deploy Epic's Care Elsewhere module to enable the exchange of Continuity of Care Documents between Epic and disparate vendor systems.
OCHIN is expanding its EHR and data exchange services to non-member providers. The Allscripts applications will be available at a discounted price and OCHIN is seeking similar agreements with other certified EHR vendors.
Oregon Collaborative Partners with Allscripts, Expands Epic Connectivity
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