The University of Hawaii at Hilo's 3-year-old College of Pharmacy has been awarded $16.1 million as one of 15 communities participating in a national pilot project to use information technology to improve health care.

Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced the Beacon Community program yesterday in Washington.

“;These pioneering communities are going to lead the way in bringing smarter, lower-cost health care to all Americans through use of electronic health records,”; Biden said.

The Big Island—”;unique in geography, culture and sense of community”;—will implement a regionwide Health Information Exchange and Personal Health Record, according to the announcement.

Improving the health status of at-risk populations—such as native Hawaiians, seniors, pregnant women, infants and non-English-speaking residents—will be emphasized.

The College of Pharmacy is leading the project as part of a Hawaii County Beacon Community Consortium, which includes educators, health care providers and insurers.

“;This is great news,”; said John Pezzuto, college dean, explaining much of the money will go into developing the information technology.

“;At the point of care, health professionals will have full access to a patient's entire medical history,”; he said in an interview. “;Hopefully that will facilitate making better decisions.”;

Karen Pellegrin, director of strategic planning for the College of Pharmacy and principal investigator for its Beacon project, said she believes Hilo was selected as a pilot community because “;the business community and health providers have really come together to say we're ready for this grant.”;

She said the Hawaii Medical Service Association had decided independently to invest several million dollars in health information exchange technology for Hawaii County. When the Beacon grants were announced, “;we pulled together the team to work on a Beacon grant application,”; she said. “;Prior to their investment, HMSA had been subsidizing the cost of physicians moving from paper to electronic records.”;

She said the new grant will allow the college to leverage HMSA's investment and adopt additional technologies to get the most benefit from the health information exchange. Support staff will be funded for outreach to help engage patients in using the technology, she said.

“;We (patients) will each have our own electronic personal health record so we can interact with the system,”; she said. “;Anyone has a right not to participate,”; she added, stressing privacy aspects. However, she said the program is expected to increase communication with care providers, improve quality and reduce costs. “;We're very excited about the potential.”;

Biden and Sebelius said the Beacon Community program—costing a total of $220 million for the 15 recipients—is expected to lay the groundwork for a health technology industry to support thousands of jobs nationally.

The projects are expected to create dozens of new jobs in each community, paying an average of $70,000 a year, they said, adding that this is expected to accelerate development of a nationwide health IT infrastructure that could eventually employ tens of thousands.

Pezzuto said after only three years, the Pharmacy College has about 70 faculty and staff and is receiving about 1,200 applications for 90 student openings. In August the four-year program will have 350 students, he said, explaining the fourth year is experiential. “;We're very pleased with developments here,”; he said.

UH-Hilo also will be expected to utilize federal programs that are working to promote health information exchange at the community level, according to the White House announcement.

The award is part of an overall $100 billion federal investment by the administration in science, innovation and technology through the Recovery Act to increase domestic jobs and economic growth, it said.