subject: What is ARRA and how does it pertain to the Healthcare Industry? [print this page] What is ARRA and how does it pertain to the Healthcare Industry?
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, also commonly referred to as the Stimulus or Recovery Act is an economic stimulus package enacted by Congress in February of 2009 and signed into law by President Obama on Feb. 17th 2009.
The act was intended to create jobs and promote investment and consumer spending during the current recession. Funds were allocated for a variety of spending projects and programs including those for education, energy, tax breaks homeland security in addition to $59 billion that was allocated specifically for the healthcare industry. Of this allocation, a total of $25.8 billion has been designated for HIT (Health Information Technology) programs designed to modernize the healthcare system and promote the adoption of health information technology by 2014. It is estimated that achieving this goal will reduce federal healthcare costs by over $12 billion over the next 10 years.
Monetary allocations of the act include:
$53 billion for Education and Training
$81 billion for Protections of the Vulnerable
$144 billion for State and Local Fiscal Relief
$288 billion for Tax Relief
$43 billion for Energy
$111 billion for Infrastructure and Science
$59 billion for Health Care
$8 billion for Other
Interesting fact: No Republicans in the House and only three Republican Senators voted for the bill initially.
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Features include:
Flexible - "Rules" and "monitor" base configuration system allows you to design custom scenarios for transferring files from one location to another.
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Error Handling: Full loggings of all transfers are customizable error handling/notification options are built in to ensure your files are not lost during the transfer process.
Archiving: GearXport also offers an option to keep a backup of all your work that gets sent out, so you will never have to worry about lost data.
Directory/Network: GearXport easily moves files automatically from one folder to another across networks.
Email: GearXport can use MAPI email clients such as Microsoft Outlook or Eudora Pro to send files via email. GearXport also supports the SMTP to directly connect to mail servers without additional software.
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Demographics file: GearXport can create a demographics file that will give valuable information about the sound file such as Author ID, Department, Work Type and other information.