The American Recovery And Reinvestment Act Of 2009 Essay

On February 17, 2009, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was instated. This fiscal plan was created to stabilize the economy while it was spiraling down out of control. At the time, the United States was experiencing many economic problems and was very close to a collapse. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was created by Barack Obama to save 900,000 to 2.3 million jobs. The plan asked for 800 billion dollars but had to be approved by congress first. This plan tried to end the breakdown of the economy and boost it back up to its normal level of performance if not better.

In 2009, the U.S. Government passed The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, to promote the adoption and meaningful use of health information technology (Mangalmurti, Murtagh and Mello 2060). The HITECH Act authorizes grants and incentives to promote the “meaningful use” of electronic health records (EHR) by providers (2060). The effect is a high commitment to a technology-led system reform, urging a renewed national commitment to building an information infrastructure to support health care delivery, consumer health, quality measurement and improvement, public accountability, clinical and health services research, and clinical

The American Recovery and Reinvestmant Act, along with the Affordable Care Act, have mandated a change in the business of health care. Federal reimbursement is now based on prevention and patient outcomes. Our class web links to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services(CMS.gov) and Institute for Healthcare Improvement (ihi.org) have a wealth of information on how we are going to change our current health care delivery system. The president of Institute for Healthcare Improvement Pat Rutherford, has a video on how our system is going to change-It’s Art & Science. She explains that we need evidence based on research to provide the best medical care, and then customize care to each person’s values, preferences and needs. She explains that

The U.S. submitted its INDC to achieve an economy-wide target of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 26%-28% below its 2005 level by 2025. With this plan, the U.S. has several laws related to its environmental policies. Among them, these are main four Acts (Korea Institute of Energy Research [KIER], 2016a): The Energy Policy Act established in 1992 was to secure energy security and revised in 2005 to decrease the reliance on oil and coal energy; The Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) legislated in 2007 due to the necessity for energy independence caused by the unstable Middle East and high oil prices, so President Bush announced the 'Twenty in Ten Initiative ' that aimed to reduce 20% of the gasoline consumption by 2017; The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) was enacted in 2009 as one of the reflationary measures, and this included $8.5 billion investment for energy-related policies; The Clean Air Act (CAA), made in 1970, regulated the atmospheric pollution sources and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) used CAA to restrict the greenhouse gas.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 identified three main components of meaningful use: the use of a certified EHR in a meaningful manner, electronic exchange of health information to improve quality of care, and the use of technology to submit clinical outcomes and quality measures (Heath Resources and Service Administration, n.d.). ARRA includes many measures to modernize our nation’s infrastructure, with the “Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act” being an example. The HITECH Act is an effort led by Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services (CMS) in support of electronic health records and meaningful use (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC 2016). According to Galbraith (2013), the HITECH Act aims to promote the use of EHRs by providing over $27 billion in monetary incentives for health care providers that become “meaningful users”. CMS uses these core objectives to determine if a health care provider has satisfied meaningful use and is eligible to receive financial incentives (Galbraith, 2013).

Prior to the federal mandate of EHR, research continued to show the fallacies of the healthcare system like the report published from the Institute of medicine, stating that “medical errors are the 8th leading cause of deaths in the U.S. and cost approximately forty billion dollars a year” (Overview, 2012). This was one of many indicators that healthcare needed to be reformed and in 2009, the president signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act or HITECH Act, which mandated that all healthcare providers must comply and begin to transition to electronic medical records (EMR) and demonstrate “meaningful use.” This act set up a timeline, which established that practices and hospitals needed to be up and running with EMR in order to continue receiving reimbursements from federal programs like Medicaid and Medicare.

The passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act encouraged and mandated the use of health information exchange (HIE) technology in the healthcare industry. The time had finally come to enter into the electronic age, and learn how to integrate electronic health records (EHRs) into their environment. Evolution and revolution are never easy, and several issues will arise during the transition. As EHR utilization spread through healthcare organizations, problems with interoperability became evident. How could healthcare organizations successfully achieve interoperability, and collect consistent patient data? A data dictionary may be the key to unlocking an accurate and efficient HIE.

The author, Judy Murphy, focuses mostly on how the government played a huge role in the adoption of EHRs into the medical world. Murphy brings up George Bush’s statement in his 2004 State of the Union address and Obama’s push to make that happen, but this is just scratching the surface of government interventions. The author discussed the money allocated by the acts such as “The Stimulus Bill” or “The Recovery Act” to help fuel the economy and rescue a struggling health care industry. She states how acts were passed, and how there were rules set in place to be followed by hospitals and providers around the United States. The article describes how the government is basically forcing these facilities to adopt EHRs by using a reward

The ARRA includes the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, which pursues to improve American Healthcare and patient care through an extraordinary investment in Healthcare IT (HIT). The requirements of the HITECH Act are precisely designed to work jointly to provide the necessary assistance and technical operation to providers, enable grammatical relation and organization within and among states, establish connectivity in case of emergencies, and see to it the workforce is properly trained and equipped to be meaningful users of certified Electronic Health Records (EHRs). These computer software products are designed collaboratively to intensify the footing for every American to profit from an electronic health record (EHR) as part of a modernized, interrelated, and vastly improved grouping of care delivery.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Pub.L. 111–5) also known as the Obama stimulus nearly doubled the budget allocated for loan. It was in 2009 when Energy Secretary Steven Chu announces that Solyndra will receive the Energy Department’s first guarantee energy loan of $535 million, issued by the U.S. Treasury’s Federal Financing Bank even after the Department Of Energy staff warned that Solyndra would run out of money by September 2011. Making Solyndra one of several companies that received assistance from the government, attempting to push back China’s “strategic targeting of green-energy”. The loan was only 1.3% of the DOE portfolio (Johnson, 2012). Apparently, Solyndra received all this money so very soon because of the complaints

The transformation of health care through the use of Health Information Technology continued with the passing of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, which mandated the integration of physician quality reporting and Electronic Health Record reporting. This Act required the creation of measures and reporting of the “meaningful use of the electronic health record” and “quality of care furnished to an individual.” In doing so, the law directly links the adoption of the electronic health record with quality of care to the patient. This entails coordination which the Act requires the use of electronic health

Health information technology (IT) has always been in development but within the last decade we are witnessing health IT move into new advancements we never thought we would see. In 2004, President Bush set a ten year goal for health IT

Information and communication technology has been adopted and implemented within various sectors of the economy. This is attributed to the benefits of technology in facilitating organizational activities and processes and its use in meeting the changes which characterize the modern society. The health sector is one of the industries which have significantly implemented technology. The health sector’s technological applications have been achieved within health information systems. The implementation of technology in this sector has resulted into both positive and negative implications on health

Traditionally when we think of information technology we tend to think about the Internet and networking in terms of social media, office, shopping and any means of communications. However, the IT has come a long way in order to integrate and resolve a number of issues that we face on daily basis. One such issue has to do with our health care system.

Applying health information technology (HIT) can lead to further issues many organizations are not adequately prepared for. Although HIT is unquestionably the answer to deliver safe, efficient, and low-cost quality care, organizational leaders and providers are ill-equipped to fund and support advances in technology needed to fully perform its job. Additionally, even providers need to redefine their roles as they discover the impact of these technological changes in their practices. Since the only option is to move forward with advancing technology, health team providers should might as well be experts in health informatics to be able to direct the HIT’s course to meeting health care goals