AHRQ to examine EHR barriers for Medicaid providers

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality announced last week plans to survey 300 clinicians to identify and understand the barriers that Medicaid providers encounter in deploying and becoming meaningful users of electronic health records (Source: “AHRQ to tackle EHR barriers Medicaid providers face,” Government Health IT, June 6, 2011).

Once the data is collected, AHRQ officials say they plan to develop technical assistance and support for putting EHR systems into operation in provider practices or upgrading existing systems. The project is expected to run over two years, according to an announcement in the June 3 Federal Register.

AHRQ is accepting public comment about the project until July 5.