The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is planning a closed RFP among its pre-selected group of PR firms to create a campaign touting electronic health records and other forms of health information technology.
The PR effort is called for under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, part of the 2009 stimulus.
Five agencies are pre-qualified to pitch CMMS assignments – Fleishman-Hillard, Ketchum, Ogilvy PR, Porter Novelli and Weber Shandwick – following a review last year.
Ketchum has handled multimillion-dollar PR efforts for the federal entity covering electronic health records. It currently has a pact running through August.
The campaign expected to be out for bids will be primarily aimed to educate healthcare providers eligible for incentives, with a secondary component targeting Medicare and Medicaid consumers about digital health records and how they lower costs and increase quality of care.