Iowa’s Medicaid program will receive $1.16 million in federal matching funds to establish a plan for how health-care providers can more widely implement electronic health records.

Iowa is the first state in the nation to receive approval for its plan, which it submitted earlier this year to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), said Cindy Mann, director of the Center for Medicaid and State Operations at CMS.

“While Iowa is the first state to receive approval of its plan, a number of other states have submitted plans as well,” Mann said in a press release.

The federal matching funds are part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), which established a pool of funds for which states could apply. According to CMS, the planning activities include “conducting a comprehensive analysis of HIT (health information technology) activities in the state, including data on “existing barriers to the use of EHR (electronic health records), provider eligibility for EHR incentive payments and the creation of a state HIT Plan, which will define the state’s vision for long-term HIT use.”

Earlier this year, Iowa health-care officials estimated that only about 20 percent of health-care providers in the state have begun using electronic health records, about the same adoption rate as the rest of the country.

Electronic health records are expected to improve the quality and efficiency of health care by making it easier to access patients’ records and share information among doctors and hospitals. They are also expected to make it easier for patients to access their own medical information and enable them to make better decisions about their care.

Under the ARRA, which became law in February, doctors in health systems or practices that have implemented “meaningful” electronic health records systems will begin receiving bonus payments added to their Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements, beginning in 2011. A physician practice could receive as much as $44,000 in additional funds per year in Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements as an incentive to have an electronic health records system in place.

Also, hospitals that have qualifying systems will receive base payments for having those systems, with the payments adjusted upward or downward based on their number of patient discharges and how many Medicare and Medicaid patients they treat.