Congress funds nursing home tech upgrades to improve senior care coordination
H.R. 9844 — CHARTS Act · Filed by Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) · Introduced Jul 22, 2026 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services to award grants (up to $500,000 each, for 3 years) to nursing homes, skilled nursing facilities, and home health agencies to help them develop and adopt electronic health information systems that improve care coordination, reduce duplicate services, and enable data sharing across providers. The bill authorizes $5 million per year for fiscal years 2027–2028, requires HHS to prioritize providers serving Medicare and Medicaid patients, and mandates reports evaluating whether the technology reduces hospitalizations, falls, and federal spending.
Why we flagged it
The bill is a straightforward federal grant program designed to improve interoperability and care coordination in long-term and post-acute care settings. It is not a deregulation, tax provision, or industry carve-out—it is direct public investment in health information technology infrastructure.
What the text implies
- Grant recipients will be required to adopt standardized data formats (US Core Data for Interoperability), which may create de facto industry standards that favor certain EHR vendors or platforms over others.
- The bill's emphasis on 'diverse and nationally representative' recipients may inadvertently advantage larger, better-resourced facilities over smaller rural or independent providers who lack IT capacity to apply.
The full analysis lists 4 implications of this text.
Who stands to gain
Electronic health record (EHR) vendors and health IT service providers; Nursing homes, skilled nursing facilities, and home health agencies (as grant recipients)