“Congress ensured of millions of dollars will go toward public health data system modernization over the next five years, as part of the $900 billion COVID-19 relief bill passed Monday night.”
“The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology would receive $62.4 million in fiscal 2021 to develop and advance interoperable systems, if the bill is enacted, as expected, in the next couple of weeks.”
“The relief bill would further appropriate $100 million every fiscal year for the next five years for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to award grants to health departments, labs and providers modernizing their systems…”
“Outside of HHS, the Veterans Health Administration would receive $4.9 billion to support the development and operation of IT systems and telecommunications. An additional $2.6 billion would be made available for the Veterans Electronic Health Record System through the end of fiscal 2023.”
“More broadly the bill would add $25 million to the White House’s Technology Modernization Fund, as well as $55 million to the Federal Citizen Services Fund to support interagency projects using innovative IT to enable electronic services…” Read the full article here.
Source: COVID-19 relief bill includes $62.4M for interoperable public health data systems – By Dave Nyczepir, December 22, 2020. FedScoop.