WASHINGTON – President Obama signed the $787 billion economic stimulus package into law Feb. 18, which includes $20 billion for healthcare IT advancement. Medicare and Medicaid providers who adopt healthcare IT can cash in on an expected $30 billion in net bonuses over the next 10 years.

Even though bonuses for using electronic health records (EHR) won't start until 2011, experts from the healthcare IT industry strongly urge providers to act quickly when it comes to EHR adoption.

Michael Paddock, CEO of Grants Office, LLC, and a speaker at a five-part HIMSS seminar on the stimulus package, said providers "need to have a plan soon."

According to Dave Garets, president and CEO Healthcare Information and Management and Systems Society's HIMSS Analytics, 94 percent of hospitals currently don't have enough healthcare IT in place to meet the stipulations required to receive bonuses. Under the new law, they must prove "meaningful use," which will require capturing certain data.

Garets expects that healthcare organizations will adopt healthcare IT "with a vengeance" in 2009. He and other HIMSS leaders are concerned there are "precious few" change management experts to help providers make the complicated transition to healthcare IT by 2011.

Garets said it's not as simple as hiring a software technician to make the transition. There is a need for qualified people who know how to help with workflow adaptation and how to implement software packages so they work for the organization. "These people are extremely valuable and extremely rare," he said.

John Halamka, MD, CIO of Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital and Harvard Medical School, said workflow is always the hard part when it comes to healthcare IT adoption, and it's something that takes time. "The technology aspect comprises 20 percent of the transition, and workflow is 80 percent," he said.

Payments under the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act are graduated in descending amounts for federal fiscal years 2011 through 2015. After 2015, there are penalties for providers that do not use healthcare IT.

Physicians are eligible for $44,000 to more than $60,000 in extra payments over the five-year period, including $18,000 the first year. Incentives for hospitals will start at a base of $2 million annually.

To qualify for bonuses, providers must have certified electronic health record technology capable of providing clinical decision support to physician order entry and capturing query information relevant to healthcare quality. The system must also be able to exchange and integrate electronic health information with other sources.

The maximum payment for qualifying physicians under the stimulus package is $18,000 for the first year, $12,000 for the second year, $8,000 for the third year, $4,000 for the fourth year and $2,000 for the fifth year.