Doctor and senior woman wearing facemasks during coronavirus and flu outbreak. Virus protection. COVID-2019..

The federal government is putting money behind its push to have providers adopt more electronic record-keeping measures.

The Department of Health and Human Services issued three contracts in October worth $17.5 million to private groups to further electronic medical record use.
The healthcare sector is considered among the slowest when it comes to adopting information technology, with nursing homes lagging within that group.
National coordinator for health information technology, David Brailer, called the contracts “a significant milestone in a broader strategy to spur technical innovation for nationwide sharing of health information and adoption of electronic health records.”
HHS pledged $11.5 million to the Health Information Security and Privacy Collaboration to establish healthcare privacy regulations; $3.3 million to the American National Standards Institute received to develop software standards; and $2.7 million to the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology to develop standards for the certification of electronic health record products.