Georgia REC Makes Strides in Statewide EHR Adoption

The Georgia Health Information Technology Extension Center (GA-HITEC) has gotten 92 percent of its current member providers to go live with a certified electronic health record (EHR), the organization announced, with 2,134 (53 percent of its target) achieving meaningful use.

GA-HITEC, the only federally endorsed regional extension center (REC) in Georgia, says it ranks eighth nationally among the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology's (ONC’s) 62 RECs. It is among six RECs who have attained 53 percent of its provider members demonstrating Stage 1 meaningful use, with the national median being 45 percent.

GA-HITEC Executive Director, Kim Bell, said in a statement: "[In] surpassing the half-way point in our overall target of nearly 4,000 Georgia primary care member providers to EHR meaningful use is a direct result of the services provided through GA-HITEC and a testament to the resources and expertise available as Georgia's federally-endorsed HIT Regional Extension Center."

Delaware recently became home to the first of the 62 federally funded RECs to reach 100 percent of its ONC mandated milestones. Those milestones included a) recruiting or engaging small-to-medium sized primary care providers, b) taking those providers through electronic health record (EHR) go live with their certified EHR and c) getting more than half of the primary care providers in the state to achieve Stage 1 of meaningful use.