On the heels of a previous blog entry about momentum building toward greater health IT adoption comes survey results showing that there is some $700 million available to help physicians fund technology purchases. What makes this especially encouraging is that cost has long been cited as one of the major obstacles to more widespread proliferation of HIT. It’s exciting to see that we’ve come to a point where interest in technology is growing commensurately with financial assistance to adopt it.

The Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT) says its survey found that there are no less 90 public and private programs underway nationwide aimed at helping medical practices acquire and implement electronic health records. The largest is in New York where $157 million has been made available to about 18,000 doctors through regional networks. Other initiatives have been launched by hospital groups, insurers, employers, public-private partnerships and governments at various levels. All told, CCHIT says money is available to help more than 40,000 physicians adopt electronic health records.

Of course another way to overcome the health IT cost hurdle is to implement an approach I’ve discussed in this forum several times; one that requires physicians to simply invest in a computer and Internet access. This is all docs need to connect to a growing number of insurers that are willing to exchange clinical data with them absolutely free. It would be an opportunity for providers to sort of test drive health IT. And I’m quite confident that once they experience its value, they’ll come to rely on it and be willing to incrementally upgrade in terms of both technology and data complexity. The fact that more funding is available to facilitate this can be even more incentive to do so.

In any event, let’s be thankful that more and more entities are starting to realize the value of HIT and making money available for its adoption. Every little bit counts.