The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology released the Evaluation of the Regional Extension Center Program: Final Report. The American Institutes for Research conducted the study beginning in 2010 to evaluate the implementation and impact of the ONC's Regional Extension Center Program.
The REC program was designed to provide support for each phase of EHR implementation. Here are five things to know about the program and its impact on EHR implementation.
1. The report found participation in a regional extension center was associated with receiving EHR adoption incentives. More than half of REC participants (68 percent) received incentive payments for achieving State 1 of meaningful use, while just 12 percent of nonparticipants did.
2. The American Institutes for Research found REC participation was positively associated with EHR adoption amongst primary care physicians in smaller practices or in practices caring for a large, underserved population.
3. Additionally, the REC program was able to provide expertise and support for EHR adopters not receiving support from payers or their local hospital or health system.
4. When examining use of EHRs' MU features, the study found significantly more REC participants used six EHR features in comparison to nonparticipants.
5. The study also looked for a correlation between REC participation and adoption of care transformation programs including ACOs, pay-for-performance programs and patient-centered medical homes. The only strong association was found with pay-for-performance programs.