Washington, D.C.--Congressman Eliot Engel secured a preliminary $310,000 in funding for the Bronx Regional Health Information Organization (RHIO) as part of the fiscal year 2010 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations bill.

The funding will be used to improve low-income patient care by creating two additional Clinical Data Repositories, to improve the efficiency of the healthcare system and better provide health care to the public. The bill will now be considered by the full House Appropriations Committee, and then the full House. The Senate is also working on their version of the bill.

“As improvements are considered in Washington to our health care system, I am pleased to help those entities who are bringing quality care to the Bronx, such as Bronx RHIO. Once reforms are made, not only will this quality continue, it will be enhanced,” said Rep. Engel, a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Health.

Charles Scaglione, Executive Director of Bronx RHIO, said, “Our organization collects health care data from throughout the Bronx into Clinical Data Repositories. That allow any patients being treated almost anywhere in the Bronx to have his or her medical care information available as a means to speed diagnosis while cutting out needless repetitions of tests to cut costs. I want to thank Congressman Engel for his efforts to get us this funding.”

The Bronx RHIO is a not-for-profit organization organized by the borough’s leading healthcare providers. Participants include hospitals, such as Montefiore Medical Center, individual physicians, long-term care and home care services. Collectively, these providers deliver some 85 percent of the healthcare received by the borough’s 1.36 million residents. This includes over 95 percent of the Bronx’s annual hospital discharges, over 600,000 annual Emergency Department visits, and 4.5 million annual ambulatory care visits.

Rep. Engel added, “While this is only the beginning of the Appropriations process, I feel very good that funding for this important program was included in this measure. I will continue working with my colleagues to ensure this funding is preserved as the bill moves through the legislative process.”

The Bronx RHIO’s mission is to build a secure, interoperable health information exchange to make it possible for patients’ medical records to follow them wherever they go for health services in the Bronx. The health information exchange integrates clinical information from multiple sources and sites into a virtual medical record available to authorized users.