Resource Search Results

Keeping Children Safe From Lead Poisoning (2018). Resource Type: Publication. Description: This story series follows the medical-legal partnership at Erie Family Health Centers, which built a multi-state coalition to secure children’s health by updating federal regulations related to lead levels in federal housing. More Details...

Eliminating Hurdles to Life Saving Medication (2018). Resource Type: Publication. Description: This story series follows the Whitman-Walker Health medical-legal partnership, which worked with insurance companies to remove requirements forcing Post-Exposure Prophylaxis medications to be filled by mail More Details...

Helping Kids Get At-Home Care (2018). Resource Type: Publication. Description: What would you do if your one-year old child depended on a ventilator to breathe, and the home nursing care needed to monitor it wasn’t available? Would you keep your child in the hospital indefinitely? Would you quit your job to be home with your child, and stay up all night to make sure they didn’t stop breathing? Would you put them in a long-term nursing facility 80 miles away where they’d have the care they needed, but where you wouldn’t see them for days at a time? In 2015, for several parents in Washington State, the heartbreaking answer to all these questions was yes. More Details...

Promising Practices for Health Centers Serving Youth Experiencing Homelessness: Profiles in Health and Housing Partnerships Serving Young Adults (2018). Resource Type: Publication. Description: This case study profiles Health Centers engaging and serving youth facing the challenges of homelessness on the street and in community based housing More Details...

Behavioral Health Integration Compendium: Curated Guidance and Resources from Experienced Organizations, developed with Chiron Strategy Group (2018). Resource Type: Publication. Description: Many health centers collaborate with external behavioral health providers or provide co-located or integrated behavioral health services within their health center. Some of the most significant challenges are determining which data to share, how to store it within the Electronic Health Record, and how to use it within primary care. This compendium of literature and resources offers some guidance related to behavioral health data integration, complete with key health center considerations for each. Many health centers collaborate with external behavioral health providers or provide co-located or integrated behavioral health services within their health center. Some of the most significant challenges are determining which data to share, how to store it within the Electronic Health Record, and how to use it within primary care. This compendium of literature and resources offers some guidance related to behavioral health data integration, complete with key health center considerations for each. Click on each heading below to access the original pieces being profiled. Integrating Behavioral and Primary Care — Technology and Collaboration This article focuses on the challenges of integrating data between primary care and behavioral health. It discusses a number of concerns, and approaches that have been taken, including the benefits of developing structured data within the EHR. Health Center Takeaway: Patient consent for sharing sensitive health information can be integrated into the EHR, which will allow for greater information sharing while complying with Federal privacy expectations. Can technology shape the future of behavioral health? This article includes a number of different ways that technology plays a part in integrated behavioral health, highlighting: Adoption of telehealth as a means to augment care; Inclusion of behavioral health data in Health Information Exchanges, citing the experience of Arizona; and An example of an application being developed with NIH support that hopes to provide collaborative care tools to patients. Health Center Takeaway: Health centers are encouraged to investigate whether insurers will reimburse for telehealth and what is required to do so, to see if developing a telehealth program might augment the availability of behavioral health services for your patients. HITEQ has a number of resources related to telehealth. Integrated Behavioral Health Partners Three Case Studies on Behavioral Health Data Sharing Three California case studies where organizations shared behavioral health data.  The website includes details regarding mental health data, substance use data, consent, methods of sharing, and challenges. Health Center Takeaway: Use these examples of different approaches to consent and level of information sharing to foster conversation among your leadership on how to create greater data integration. Center for Health Care Strategies Integrating Physical and Behavioral Health Care in Medicaid Toolkit Section IV: Information Exchange CHCS has developed a rich resource for behavioral health integration.  This section focuses on information exchange, and has a number of helpful resources identified. Health Center Takeaway: The last two resources are integrated care plan templates; if you have an external behavioral health partner, consider how you might share data between the two organizations in a standardized format. Patient-Centered Primary Care Institute Behavioral Health Integration: Obstacles & Successes Lessons learned from this interview: Change the mindset from the bringing together of two services to truly integrating whole health Shift from historic care delivery methods to a focus on achieving better health outcomes Building trust with primary care providers is essential Health Center Takeaway: Determining what patients need will help guide the type of integration services your health center develops, which can include different approaches for different sites. SAMHSA’s Quick Start Guide to Behavioral Health Integration for Safety-Net Primary Care Providers This guide helps any health center think about where it is in the process of integrating behavioral health, with a number of embedded links for additional information. Key areas of Administration, Workforce, and Clinical Practice. Health Center Takeaway: Use this guide to identify barriers to a fully-developed program, and find resources to help overcome them. Zufall Health Center Integrated Behavioral Health and Primary Care Change Package Zufall Health Center partnered with a local behavioral health system to create an Integrated Behavioral Health system, using grant funding to help support the pilot. This collection of lessons learned focuses on: Leadership Commitment Clinical Information Systems and Measurable Improvement Integrated Care Delivery Clinical Decision Support Patient/Family Engagement Health Center Takeaway: Leadership must assess organizational capacity to collaborate, and then collect baseline data on health outcomes, including preventative screenings, ED visits, hospitalizations as some of the early steps. Implementing measurement and management of key clinical outcomes are critical next steps. NCQA Mainstreaming Behavioral Health Care NCQA has developed a Distinction in Behavioral Health Integration, which allows recognition of Patient Centered Medical Homes who have integrated care teams in place using evidence-based protocols and ongoing quality measurement and improvement. Health Center Takeaway: Many health centers have achieved recognition as a Patient Centered Medical Home PCMH or are along the way.  Aligning behavioral health integration work to earn this Distinction can help provide a roadmap for implementation of integration activities, and externally create validation for potential funders. How Intermountain Healthcare's Mental Health Integration is Improving Care Intermountain Healthcare is a large health system, with 22 hospitals and 180 clinics. It has been developing Mental Health Integration services for a number of years, with three key components: Their mental health assessment tool activates a team consultation workflow to determine which patients are referred. They designed an operational system in which mental health specialists and nurse care managers are included in the primary care staff, through full-time co-location or frequent rotation.They evaluate the program regularly to monitor patient outcomes, team effectiveness and the culture of healthcare delivery from the perspective of the patient and the care provider. Health Center Takeaway: Integrating behavioral health takes time. Intermountain Healthcare has created an efficient process to develop programs and they plan for two years to implement and become revenue-neutral. Health centers would benefit from a long-term approach with a commitment of upfront internal or external funding.   Deeper Reading If you are looking for more in-depth reading on the topic, visit the following links for longer articles. Electronic Health Record Challenges, Workarounds, and Solutions Observed in Practices Integrating Behavioral Health and Primary Care This Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine article describes the electronic health record EHR-related experiences of practices striving to integrate behavioral health and primary care using tailored, evidenced-based strategies from 2012 to 2014; and the challenges, workarounds and initial health information technology HIT solutions that emerged during implementation. Behavioral Health Information Network of Arizona: 2014 HIMSS HIE Community Roundtable This HIMSS presentation describes the design and implementation of a Health Information Exchange in Arizona that integrates behavioral health data and is 42 CFR Part 2 compliant.  Useful for any health center leadership involved in such a project with their affiliated Health Information Exchange. More Details...

The Role of Medical-Legal Partnership in Promoting Health Equity (2018). Resource Type: Publication. Description: This article shares how more than nearly 400 hospitals, health centers, and clinics across the U.S. are using legal services to treat issues–including housing, access to insurance, and stable guardianship–that drive health inequities. This commentary was published as part of a special edition of Health Affairs on “Advancing Health Equity.” More Details...

How Medical-Legal Partnership Services Can Help Address the Opioid Crisis (2018). Resource Type: Publication. Description: This issue brief from the National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership examines how legal services delivered alongside medical and behavioral health services can help support successful recovery from substance use disorders. More Details...

Health Centers Strategies for Diabetes Screening and Prevention for Children, Adults, and the Elderly webinar (2018). Resource Type: Archived Webinar. Description: This webinar explores diabetes prevention and care strategies across the lifespan. Presenters discuss standards of care in the screening and prevention for children, adults, and the elderly, sharing experiences from the field. Case examples of successful diabetes prevention programs, adult clinical treatment, and geriatrics care focused on vulnerable populations of children and adults of all ages are provided. More Details...

A Closer Look At Health Center-Based MLPs: Where They Are, How They Work, and How They are Funded (2018). Resource Type: Publication. Description: This issue brief from the National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership describes how and where these partnerships operate, and how state primary care associations are supporting these programs. It also discusses how health-center based medical-legal partnerships are financed, with a spotlight on four states that integrate financing for legal services in Medicaid payment arrangements. More Details...

Social Determinants of Health Self-Assessment (2018). Resource Type: Toolkit. Description: This Social Determinates of Health Self-Assessment will help administrators determine which SDOH markers their health center patient screening process is incorporating and the success of current SDOH strategies utilized to help the agricultural worker population. More Details...

Health Centers as Assets in their Community: Assessing Your Environment (2018). Resource Type: Archived Webinar. Description: This session is designed to provide attendees with a tour of the range of research resources available for health centers to assess market opportunities (many of them are free for all to use). We will review techniques for how to determine the size and location of the low-income, uninsured and under-served population, estimate the level of unmet need, and translate this information into workforce needs and a preliminary capital project budget. This session will also take a broader view in exploring how to determine where community gaps are within a service area with respect to the Social Determinants of Health, identifying types of assets in a community that support health and wellness. More Details...

Effective Partnerships Guide: Improving Oral Health for Migrant and Seasonal Head Start Children and their Families (2018). Resource Type: Publication. Description: The purpose of this guide is to create an opportunity for Migrant and Seasonal Head Start (MSHS) programs and health centers to learn more about each other’s programs, share resources, foster new partnerships and strengthen ones already in place. Although the guide focuses primarily on oral health, information about medical health services is included. More Details...

Competency Checklist for Bilingual Staff (2018). Resource Type: Toolkit. Description: The Competency Checklist for Bilingual Staff will help health centers to assess the interpretation competencies of bilingual staff that have no formal interpretation training or certification, but areasked to interpret during clinic encounters. More Details...

CLAS Self-Assessment Tool (2018). Resource Type: Toolkit. Description: This assessment tool can assist CHCs to determine the status of CLAS implementation strategies within their organization. More Details...

Collecting Data On Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, And Pacific Islanders For Community Health Center Needs Assessments: A Learning Series - Part 1: Social Determinants of Health of Emerging Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islander (AA&NHPI) Populations by States (2017). Resource Type: Archived Webinar. Description: This webinar provides a data portrait of the fastest growing AA&NHPI populations by state with profiles of their social determinants of health characteristics. The five states are Arizona, Arkansas, Nevada, North Carolina, and North Dakota. The seven SDOH characteristics mentioned are educational attainment, foreign born, language spoken at home and ability to speak English, employment status, health insurance coverage, poverty level, and household characteristics. Collecting and having disaggregated data is important to better understand the unique barriers faced by AA&NHPIs since they represent more than 50 ethnic groups and over 100 languages. Health centers can use this data to develop more culturally and linguistically appropriate programs to better serve these communities. More Details...

Promising Practices for Health Centers: Health and Housing Partnerships for Older Adults: Aging in Place in Supportive Housing (2017). Resource Type: Publication. Description: This case study profiles Health Centers serving aging and vulnerable populations in their communities More Details...

Improving Diabetes Outcomes: Curated Expert Guidance, Tools, and Resources (2017). Resource Type: Publication. Description: According to 2016 UDS data, an estimated 14.3% of Federally Qualified Health Center patients nationwide have diabetes. Of these 2 million plus patients living with diabetes, approximately 32% have uncontrolled diabetes, with HbA1c equal to or above 9% or have had no test in the prior year. These statistics bring forth the need for improvement in the care of diabetes; several resources and research outcomes are profiled here with specific takeaways for health centers. As of CDC's 2017 National Diabetes Statistics Report, 30.3 million people, or 9.4% of the total U.S. population, have diabetes. Of these 30.3 million, only 23.1 million are diagnosed - while the other estimated 7.2 million are undiagnosed. Additionally, more than 1 in 3 adults or 84.1 million people in the U.S. have prediabetes. Among adults age 65 and older, nearly half have prediabetes. More Details...

Measuring Population Health Management Return on Investment: A methodology to calculate ROI (Return on Investment) using a Matrix Tool (2017). Resource Type: Publication. Description: There is a great deal of interest among health centers, Primary Care Associations PCAs, and Health Center Controlled Networks HCCNs in the advantages associated with investing in Population Health Management electronic platforms. Measuring specific and quantifiable returns clarifies the benefits and supports consistent understanding among stakeholders of the value of PHM. There is a great deal of interest among health centers, Primary Care Associations PCAs, and Health Center Controlled Networks HCCNs in the advantages associated with investing in Population Health Management PHM electronic platforms.  Measuring specific and quantifiable returns clarifies the benefits and supports consistent understanding among stakeholders of the value of PHM. Available below, the PDF document titled Measuring Population Health Management Return on Investment outlines a conceptual process for measurement of ROI of a population health management system offered at the network level. What is presented here could also be used a starting point for developing an ROI analysis at the organizational level. The companion tool, an Excel file titled PHM ROI Matrix Tool, provides recommendations for measurement for different stages of PHM implementation and an ROI calculator. Download both of these resources below. These resources were created in partnership with Michigan Primary Care Association and Mark S. Rivera of Managed Care Consulting Inc./MCC Analytics, and HITEQ thanks both for their time, insight, and energy. More Details...

Growing Our Own: Cultivating the Next Generation of Primary Care Physicians in Community Health Centers (2017). Resource Type: Publication. Description: It is critical to advance policies and programs that help community health centers (CHCs) become Educational Health Centers (EHCs)2 and “grow their own” primary care training opportunities. This paper explores several pathways for promoting CHCs as teaching environments - enhanced partnerships between Academic Medical Centers (AMCs) and CHCs (with either the AMC or the CHC as the sponsoring institution3), and CHCs participating in HRSA Teaching Health Center (THC) funding opportunities (with sponsorship either by the CHC alone or by a consortium body) - and posits a spectrum of options and costs associated with each of these pathways to train medical residents. More Details...

Using Data to Manage Population Health Under Risk-Based Contracts: A background on what you need and how to use it (2017). Resource Type: Publication. Description: This resource will equip health center stakeholders with the understanding of what data-related capacity is needed to succeed under risk-based payment models.   This brief walks health centers through three key questions related to using data to succeed under risk-based contracts: 1 What data do I need and how do I get it?  2  How should I analyze the data? and 3 How should I use the data to manage quality and cost? Understanding the answers to these questions assists health centers in understanding the data-related capacities needed to participate successfully in risk-bearing payment models. Download the brief below! More Details...