HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius at the media budget briefing held February 1 remarked that whether fighting a pandemic, protecting food safety, or transforming the healthcare system with electronic medical records, the agency is guided by some of the finest scientific and medical experts in the world. The President’s HHS FY 2011 budget request totals $911 billion in outlays, an increase of $51 billion over FY 2010.
The budget request for the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology is $78 million, which is $17 million above FY 2010. The budget request in conjunction with the $2 billion appropriated to ONC under the Recovery Act, will enable HHS to continue implementing the HITECH Act, accelerate the adoption of health IT, and help physicians achieve meaningful use of EHRs.
ONC’s plans for the $2 billion Recovery Act investment in health IT includes $693 million to establish the Health IT Extension Program, $564 million for a Health Information Exchange State Grant Program, $118 million to develop the health IT workforce, $235 million to go to the Beacon Communities Program, $24 million to carry out responsibilities under HITECH Act, $20 million for NIST to develop health IT standards testing, and $345 million to advance the care of all Americans with EHRs by 2014.
The FY 2011 Budget request for HHS divisions includes other funds and programs to advance the health IT agenda and related items.
Highlights include:
• NIH—the budget request is $32.2 billion with an increase of $1.0 billion or 3.2 percent over the FY 2010. In FY 2011, NIH will use the funding to support innovative research, to support genomics and other high throughput technologies that will provide for innovative efforts against cancer and autism, translate basic science into new and better treatments, reinvigorate the biomedical research community, use science to enable healthcare reform, and to focus on global health. The research portfolio for nanotechnology research would increase by $30 million for a total of $359 million. Opportunities to advance science would be accomplished through research and development contracts for comparative effectiveness studies or to support research centers for genomic and other high throughput technologies
• AHRQ—the budget request includes $611 million with an increase of $214 million above FY 2010. The budget includes $32 million which is $4 million above the FY 2010 level for health IT research. This research entails developing and disseminating evidence and evidence-based tools to inform stakeholders how health IT can improve the quality, safety, and efficiency of healthcare. The health IT program will also continue to fund research in strategic focus areas concerning “meaningful use” in collaboration with the ONC for HIT. The budget request for health IT would fund 44 research and training grants to improve the quality and safety of care by looking at the effective use of Health IT, by providing contracts to support the National Resource Center for Health IT, as well as projects to develop and disseminate evidence and evidence-based tools on the use of health IT. The budget request includes $65 million for the AHRQ patient safety program. AHRQ wants to improve primary care and clinical outcomes by supporting healthcare redesign, provide for clinical community linkages, care coordination, and the integration of health IT. AHRQ wants to increase funding for HCUP by nearly $2 million
• CMS—the budget request for CMS is $784.3 billion a net increase of $48.3 billion over FY 2010. This budget request makes fighting healthcare fraud a priority by investing an additional $250 million in new resources and be used to support legislative and administrative changes. This funding would expand data sharing and coordination between HHS and DOJ to help stop fraudulent schemes and practices, and to help expose systemic vulnerabilities that have been exploited by fraudulent healthcare providers. This funding would also provide for the investment in cutting edge and data mining technologies. The budget request includes $3.6 billion, an increase of $186 million to strengthen and revamp IT systems so that CMS can meet the future challenges of both the Medicare and Medicaid programs. The agency wants to increase investments in program management and would invest $110 million for the Health Care Data Improvement Initiative to replace aging information systems, and to transform the healthcare data environment. CMS wants to go from a system primarily focused on claims processing and to focus on state-of- the-art data analysis and information sharing
• CDC—the budget request is $10.6 billion with an increase of $101 million above FY 2010. The budget request calls for $307 million to go for Health Statistics, Health Marketing, and Public Health Informatics. The budget for Health Statistics includes $162 million, $23 million above FY 2010 to obtain and use statistics to understand health problems and recognize emerging trends. The budget includes $78 million a decrease of $2 million to go for health marketing. The Public Health Informatics budget of $67 million would fund information systems and IT to prevent diseases, disability, and other public health diseases. The budget request includes $352 million which is $16 million above FY 2010 for global health programs and also includes $20 million to reduce the rates of morbidity and disability due to chronic disease in up to ten of the largest U.S. cities
• HRSA—the budget request is $7.6 billion with an increase of $29 billion above FY 2010. The budget would provide an increase of $412 million to improve access to healthcare in underserved areas and includes $142 million to improve access to quality rural healthcare. Within this total, $62 million would be used to help Critical Access Hospitals conduct research on rural health issues and support community access to emergency devices. $290 million would be used to expand services at health centers. HRSA will work to develop stronger links between telehealth activities and other investments in rural health. The requested funds for telehealth would total $12 million. The budget request includes $995 million which is an increase of $33 million to support healthcare workforce programs to increase the number of providers in underserved areas. In addition, the budget includes $113 million to maintain training for underrepresented minorities and for financially disadvantaged students in health professions
• FDA—the budget request for $4 billion with an increase of $748 million over FY 2010 would go to support medical product safety, and allow FDA to invest in tools to assure the safety of increasingly complex drugs, medical devices, and biological products. The budget request would provide $1.4 billion for medical product safety which is an increase of $101 million above FY 2010. With the budget request, FDA would provide $4 million to establish a medical device registry. The budget calls for a $25 million increase for advancing regulatory science at FDA. The budget includes $15 million for nanotechnology related research and the increased resources would allow FDA to update review standards and provide regulatory pathways for new technologies such as biosimilars
• SAMHSA—the budget requests $3.7 billion a net increase of $110 million over FY 2010. The budget includes $136 million an increase of $34 million to administer and support national data collection efforts on drug related emergency room visits and deaths. The agency would also fund a new initiative to design and test community level early warning systems to detect the emergence of new drug threats and assist in identifying the public health and safety consequences of drug abuse
• Indian Health Service—the IHS budget requests $5.4 billion an increase of $354 million over FY 2010 and includes an increase of $4 million to support secure data exchange. The budget includes $864 million with an increase of $84 million to purchase medical care including essential services such as inpatient and outpatient care, routing and emergency care, and medical support services such as diagnostic imaging, physical therapy, and laboratory services
Go to www.hhs.gov/budget or to www.hhs.gov/asrt/ob/docbudget/2011budgetinbrief.pdf for more information.
