A Medical Device Daily
The Department of Health and Human Resources Secretary (HHS) Mike Leavitt reported $550 million in grants to fund primary care and support services for individuals living with HIV/AIDS in 56 cities and major urban areas. The grants are awarded to 22 eligible metropolitan areas (EMAs) with the highest number of people living with HIV/AIDS, and to 34 transitional grant areas (TGAs) experiencing increases in HIV/AIDS cases and emerging care needs.
The awards are provided under Part A of the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, which is administered by HHS’ Health Resources and Services Administration.
To be eligible as EMAs, metropolitan areas must have a cumulative total of more than 2,000 AIDS cases over the most recent five-year period and a population of 50,000 or more persons.
Cities are considered TGAs if they have at least 1,000, but not more than 1,999, cumulative AIDS cases during the most recent five years, and a population of 50,000 or more persons.
“Historically, Part A grants target care and services to major urban areas with the highest concentration of HIV/AIDS cases,” said HRSA Administrator Elizabeth Duke. “But these funds also enable us to direct essential services such as counseling and testing to emerging areas to help reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS.”
In contract news:
• Allscripts (Chicago) a provider of clinical software, connectivity and information solutions, reported that TeamPraxis (Honolulu, Hawaii) a physician management services organization, has purchased a statewide license for its Electronic Health Record (EHR). The agreement enables TeamPraxis to provide the Allscripts solution to physicians across Hawaii.
Creighton Arita, president/CEO of TeamPraxis, said, “Our partnership with Allscripts helps us fulfill our vision of serving and empowering Hawaii’s physicians with real-time information at the point of care, helping to curb rising costs and to improve the quality of patient care.”
Allscripts and TeamPraxis have worked together with the Hawaii Medical Service Association (HMSA; Honolulu), the state’s largest health insurer, to provide electronic prescribing to more than 700 physicians positioned to migrate to the full electronic health record (HER). HMSA recently said that it would provide $20 million in grants for physicians to acquire EHRs. Under the initiative, 1,000 Hawaii physicians will each be eligible to receive up to $20,000 towards a new EHR.
The Allscripts HER facilitates prescribing medications, ordering and viewing laboratory tests, and documenting patient care and connects physicians and caregivers to laboratories, pharmacies, insurers and other key healthcare stakeholders.
• Conmed Healthcare Management (Hanover Maryland), a provider of services to county detention centers, reported acquiring nine healthcare service contracts with six counties in Oregon currently being serviced by Dr. Robert Tilley, MD, doing business as Emergency Medicine Documentation Consultants (EMDC). Terms were not disclosed.
Tilley will remain with Conmed as VP and medical director of the Northwest Region. The transaction closed on February 28, 2008.