Projects

Project Overview

This project assessed programs funded under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH). The evaluation aimed to help the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) ensure vital connections were made across HITECH initiatives by examining the critical linkages among those initiatives and between the initiatives and meaningful use of health information technology (HIT). The global assessment also provided ONC with a vehicle for assessing the effect of increased meaningful use on healthcare quality and costs.

For this global assessment, Insight partnered with Mathematica Policy Research and the Urban Institute. The study provided insights into what features were working best, how success varied across geographic areas (e.g., regions, States, local markets) and target populations (e.g., Medicare beneficiaries), and what future steps would best facilitate the fulfillment of ONC’s goals. The assessment complemented evaluations of individual HITECH programs to help integrate and interpret findings on individual programs and support an expanded analysis of factors likely to determine the successes of HITECH.

For this project, Insight—

• Convened a Technical Expert Panel of experts in HIT, electronic health record adoption, clinical care, health services research, health economics, and public policy
• Coordinated the first in-person meeting of the panel
• Prepared a comprehensive report documenting the panel’s recommendations
• Worked with the panel to provide contributions to the evaluation plan and annual reports

Products

• Report, Global Assessment of the HITECH Program Technical Expert Panel: Summary and Recommendations (October 2010)
• Annual reports 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014
• Final report (September 2015)