(Washington, DC) The Department of Health Care Finance (DHCF) announced the launch of the Hospital Health Information Exchange (HIE) Connection Program. The new program provides sub-grants for eligible hospitals to participate in the District’s HIE program. The Hospital HIE Connection Program will provide hospitals with access to three valuable services which include encounter notification services, a patient query portal and encounter reporting services.  

Hospitals interested in applying for the sub-grant must submit a Request for Applications (RFA) which is available online at www.dhcf.dc.gov or at www.opgs.dc.gov. The deadline to submit sub-grant applications is Friday, September 6, 2013.  

The Hospital HIE Connection Program is open to non-psychiatric acute care hospitals located in the District. Eligible hospitals must meet specific milestones associated with connecting to and use of an HIE to receive a sub-grant award. For example, hospitals will be required to transmit certain types of patient health information such as critical care documents and to use a patient query portal. The sub-grant awards will be based upon gross hospital revenue and bed capacity.

DHCF received a $5.1 million cooperative agreement from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) to facilitate the electronic exchange of health information. The Hospital HIE Connection Program is supported by cooperative agreement funding.