Obama Announces Funding for Health Care Research and Illinois Health Services

Press Release

Obama Announces Funding for Health Care Research and Illinois Health Services

U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) today announced that the Senate Appropriations Committee approved his funding requests for expanding and strengthening Illinois' health services:

"This critical funding will expand access to health care in medically underserved areas, increase desperately needed research on autism, and improve services and decrease costs by modernizing our medical record system." Said Senator Obama. "While we still must do a lot more to make health care affordable and to expand health coverage to every American, federal investment in these programs is a critical down payment toward improving health care for Illinois residents."

Fiscal Year 2008 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations

$350,000 to Lewis and Clark Community College, for its mobile health clinic to provide healthcare services to rural areas:

Funds will be used to purchase a mobile health clinic (RV) which will provide dental, general health and mental health care to more than 90,000 patients in four rural Illinois counties (Greene, Calhoun, Jersey and Macoupin). Funding will allow the mobile health clinic to perform ongoing services for 3,500 children in eleven targeted schools, in addition to community services such as pre-natal examinations, obstetric and gynecological examinations, and general public education programs will be provided by the clinic.

$350,000 to Riverside Healthcare, for a Computerized Physician Order Entry system for Kankakee:

Riverside Health Care, a regional health care provider, would implement the Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE) system upgrade in a preliminary phase. This system would employ, in part: physician point of care technologies to promote interdisciplinary collaboration; online medical records to support analysis of patient problems and development of treatment approach; evidence -based order sets to guide best practices in physician and nurse clinician decision making; and immediate and urgent reminders of significant clinical changes to ensure appropriate and rapid response.

$650,000 to Easter Seals Metropolitan Chicago (ESMC), for its therapeutic School and Center for Autism Research:

Illinois has seen a 353% increase in autism since 1993, and the ESMC Therapeutic School and Center for Autism Research responds to this trend. ESMC currently operates three Therapeutic Day Schools that serve students with autism/profound developmental disabilities referred from 50+ Illinois school districts through a broad spectrum of academic and therapeutic services. The new Therapeutic School and Center for Autism Research seeks to build upon this history and provide students from across Illinois with access to a state-of-the-art facility.

$550,000 for Illinois Primary Health Care Association (IPHCA), for the Electronic Health Record Project:

This undertaking is an effort to assure the clear, concise retention and communication of patient-specific information among providers and payers in a manner that protects privacy. Electronic Health Records promote quality, reduce costs, and prevent medical errors.

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