|
Rural Health Briefing, March 1, 2006
National News
1. CAHs in Regional HIT Network
2. Changing the Rural Shortage of Nurses
3. EHealth Learning Forum
4. HIT Resources at AHRQ
5. Treating Acute Stroke via Telemedicine
6. Improving Cultural Competency
7. Tracking National Health Bills
Across Arizona
1. ATP Going WiFi
2. Future Emergency Care
3. Medication Safety with HIT
4. Culture Matters in Arizona Health Care
EMS
1. EMS Leadership Conference
Arizona Flex Program
1. Projects and Programs for Critical Access Hospitals
Grants and Opportunities
1. Reducing Cardiovascular Risks in American Indians and Alaska Natives
2. Investigating Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Treatment
Calendar
March 7-9, 11th Annual Arizona Interagency Farmworker Coalition Conference, Yuma
March 14-16, Annual Conference of the Association for Community Health Improvement, Phoenix
March 17, Abstract submissions due for National Rural Women’s Health Conference, to be held in San Antonio, Texas, November 16-18
March 25, Health Care That Works for All Americans Community Forum, Phoenix
March 28-31, Fourth Annual Western Region Flex Conference, Las Vegas, Nevada
April 1, Interdisciplinary Women’s Health Conference, Tucson
April 3-9, National Public Health Week
April 6-7, Carrying the Torch for Patient Safety, Mesa, Arizona
April 17, Southern Arizona Women’s Health Forum, Nogales, Arizona
April 17-19, Culturally Based Substance Abuse Treatments for Native American, Alaska Natives and Latinos, Tucson
April 18, 19, Southwest Homeland Security Conference, Phoenix
May 15-19, NRHA Annual Conference Week, Reno, Nevada
May 15-19, 2006, 3rd Annual Rural Nurse Conference, Coeur d'Alene, Idaho
May 31-June 3, 9th Annual Conference, Community-Campus Partnerships in Health, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Mark Your Calendar
June 4-7, Annual Patient Safety and Health IT Conference, Washington, D.C.
July 10-12, AHRQ’s Translating Research into Practice and Policy, Washington, D.C.
July19-21, 33rd Annual Arizona Rural Health Conference, Bisbee
September 20-22, Rural Conference on Health Information Technology, Kansas City, Missouri
National News
CAHs in Regional HIT Network
Western North Carolina Health Network (WNCHN) has launched a health information system that will link 16 area hospitals together to electronically share important patient information in a largely rural area. Four critical access hospitals (CAHs) are participating. The system, implemented by IBM Global Services and Access Pt., is the first Regional Health Information Organization (RHIO) in North Carolina. This solution allows participating clinicians to securely access patient information over the Internet in a matter of seconds. Access to this information will allow hospitals to view patient records so they can more accurately and efficiently provide treatment and avoid duplication of costly tests.
WNCHN began in 1995 and evolved from smaller alliances to currently include 29 hospitals and 13 health departments.
Click here for their website.
Changing the Rural Shortage of Nurses
A recent report of the National Rural Health Association points to the critical shortage of nurses in rural areas and urges new resources and structural changes in the educational and placement systems. Among its recommendations are including content on rural health care in curricula and development of professional support opportunities for nurses working in rural areas. It also calls for adequate funding of Nursing Workforce Development and Health Professions Training sections of the Public Health Service Act.
Click here for Issue Paper Number 6, a four-page report.
EHealth Learning Forum
Third Annual Connecting Communities Learning Forum and Exhibition, sponsored by the eHealth Initiative and Foundation (eHI), will convene from April 9-11 in Washington, D.C. The event will to bring together stakeholders, including practicing clinicians, health plans, public sector leaders, quality improvement organizations and community based health information organizations. Sessions are directed to help identify strategies (clinical, financial, legal, organizational, and technical) to support better health and healthcare through health information exchange.
Click here for details.
HIT Resources at AHRQ
HHS' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has a new suite of "learning resources" designed to help health care providers adopt health information technologies. National Resource Center for Health Information Technology provides emerging lessons from the field; a knowledge library with links to more than 5,000 health IT information resources. It also offers an evaluation toolkit to help those implementing health IT projects; a summary of key topics; plus other resources pointing to current health IT activities and funding opportunities.
Click here to go there.
Treating Acute Stroke via Telemedicine
Telemedicine can provide timely therapy for acute stroke at rural hospitals. Physicians at smaller hospitals may be untrained in administering tPA – the only FDA-approved drug for stroke. And it can only be given within three hours of symptom onset. Some medical centers without on-site stroke expertise are using telemedicine to fill this gap. Two-way videoconferencing allows stroke experts to see the patient and interact with physicians at local hospitals. Stroke physicians can guide local emergency physicians to perform a neurological evaluation, rapidly review imaging, and discuss treatment options, including tPA. Telemedicine in such cases is a bridge to better care.
(Adapted from MedScape from WebMD)
Improving Cultural Competency
Cultural competency is the ability to reach out effectively and appropriately to individuals of different cultural backgrounds. The Cultural Competency Initiative, launched in 2000, assists organizations by providing funding and technical assistance as well as by disseminating information about innovative minority outreach programs. Their publication, Cultural Competency Toolkit: Ten Grant Sites Share Lessons Learned, shares expertise and materials from ten model programs.
Click here for details.
The National Center for Cultural Competence at Georgetown University Medical Center offers a guide to health and human service organizations as they look at what makes up their own attitudes, practices and policies. For this rationale and guide to self-assessment, click here.
Tracking National Health Bills
A convenient site for tracking national health care legislation is maintained by TheOrator.com. Current bills are sorted alphabetically and by issue. Click here to go there.
Across Arizona
ATP Going WiFi
The Arizona Telemedicine Program (ATP) is expanding its wireless connectivity via the network of the Arizona Telecommunication and Information Council (ATIC). Patient nutrition counseling (Amado and St. Elizabeth of Hungary’s clinic)) in addition to ophthalmology and dermatology diagnosis (Amado) will be available through the Rural Health Office’s Mobile Health Clinic.
ATP is exploring diabetes clinical consultations and educational classes as further additions.
Community-Campus Partnerships for Health Grant to MEZCOPH(awaiting details)
Future Emergency Care
St. Luke’s Health Initiatives is hosting an event for Arizona health care policy leaders, The Future of the Hospital Emergency Department. It will take place on March 30 from 7:00 – 9:00 a.m. at the Camelback Inn in Phoenix. Attendance deliberately limited to 75-100 persons in order to facilitate a productive dialogue.
Registration details will be online soon at their website.
Medication Safety with HIT
Cost isn’t the only important factor in improving medication safety. Some effective measures come with very modest expense. David W. Bates, Harvard Medical School, offered an experienced overview of improving medication safety and emphasized prevention options. For example, pre-printed medication order forms and drug reference pocket cards can eliminate some errors with little cost. Ready access to an online drug interaction database is another relatively simple step. Removing concentrated electrolytes from floor units has improved safety. In one study, Adverse Drug Events were reduced by 66% after pharmacists toured their ICUs.
Bates advised that high cost programs like Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE) and bar coding of orders is proving their worth but should be put in perspective with judicious cost benefit analyses.
Bates spoke on February 3 at the University of Arizona, sponsored by the College of Pharmacy and the Critical Path Institute.
Click here for a video streamed recording of his talk.
Culture Matters in Arizona Health Care
Disparities in health care are being addressed by Culture Matters, an initiative of Health Services Advisory Group (HSAG), Arizona's Medicare Quality Improvement Organization (QIO). The educational program will help primary care physicians serving Medicare beneficiaries to assess and improve their skills in providing culturally and linguistically competent care for a diverse and ever-changing Arizona population.
Health providers can focus on two key areas to help eliminate disparities: 1) increase awareness of disparities; and, 2) integrate cross-cultural communication into the training of all current and future health professionals.
Click here for their website.
EMS
EMS Leadership Conference
The Bureau of Emergency Medical Services (BEMS) is hosting the 3rd Regional Leadership conference, March 29, at St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Phoenix. The meeting will offer an opportunity to share ideas and collaborate.
Click here for BEMS website.
Arizona Flex Program
Projects and Programs for Critical Access Hospitals
The Arizona Flex Program will soon be launching an E-Health project to support electronic medical record systems in the state’s critical access hospitals (CAHs). This will begin with a workshop on Monday, April 10 in Phoenix and a small grant program for hospitals that are preparing to implement a system. More details will be coming soon.
Arizona rural ER nurses and first responders will be offered another training. Plans are underway for a June workshop (date tba).
Page Hospital, Winslow Memorial Hospital, Copper Queen Community Hospital (Bisbee) and Southeast Arizona Medical Center (Douglas) are the CAHs participating in a Flex-sponsored program on medication reconciliation. Each will receive a mini-grant to support their project.
The Balanced Scorecard project is continuing with online data access. Benson Hospital, Copper Queen Community Hospital (Bisbee), Southeast Arizona Medical Center (Douglas), Wickenburg Community Hospital and Winslow Hospital are engaged in this performance improvement initiative.
Six Arizona CAHs are currently participating in the CMS program that allows comparison on how well the hospitals care for all their adult patients with certain medical conditions including pneumonia, heart attack and heart failure.
Click here for details.
The mid-level managers training, sponsored by the Arizona Flex Program, drew a full house on February 23 and 24 in Phoenix. 25 participants from nine CAHs plus two people from other rural hospitals attended. Strategies and practical methods of leadership, communication, team building and problem solving were discussed.
Grants and Opportunities
Note: Technical assistance is available for the development of grant proposals and other funding applications from the professional staff of the Rural Health Office and the State Office of Rural Health Program. Please contact Jennifer Peters.
Reducing Cardiovascular Risks in American Indians and Alaska Natives
Application deadline: March 10
The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) invites applications for cooperative agreements to conduct five-year studies in American Indian/Alaskan Native (AI/AN) communities to test the effectiveness of behavioral interventions to promote the adoption of healthy lifestyles and/or improve behaviors related to cardiovascular (CV) risk, such as weight reduction, regular physical activity, and smoking cessation.
The program, Community-Responsive Interventions to Reduce Cardiovascular Risk in American Indians and Alaska Natives, intends to develop and test culturally appropriate interventions that could be incorporated into clinical programs of the community health care systems or delivered through public-health approaches in Native communities.
Click here for details.
Investigating Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Treatment
Brief proposal deadline: March 16
Full proposal deadline: July 20
Finding Answers: Disparities Research for Change will support evaluations of innovative interventions that reduce racial and ethnic disparities in the treatment of cardiovascular disease, depression, and diabetes. The program will award and manage a total of $5 million over a 4-year period to 20-25 grantees to support rigorous evaluations of programs, interventions, or strategies intended to reduce racial and ethnic health care disparities. Beginning in 2006, approximately 5-8 grantees annually will receive awards ranging from $50,000-$300,000 for an evaluation project period of no more than 24 months.
Grants awarded under this program will go to the institutions (health care organizations, providers or plans) implementing the intervention. However, the institutes should conduct the evaluation in partnership with a recognized academic institution or research group. It is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Click here for the RFP.
Contact Your Representatives
a. Arizona Congressional Delegation: Links to Arizona members of the U.S. House of Representatives are available at: U.S. Representatives. Links to Arizona members of the U.S. Senate are available at: U.S. Senate
b. Arizona State Legislators: Available through the Arizona Legislative Information System (ALIS): Call 1-800-352-8404 or follow links at Arizona Legislature.
Important Links
Editor's Note: This online newsletter is a project of the Arizona Rural Hospital Flexibility Program, housed in the Rural Health Office at the UA Zuckerman College of Public Health, and supported through a grant from HRSA (Office of Rural Health Policy). The Rural Hospital Flexibility Program was created by Congress to improve the financial viability and stability of health care in rural areas, including creation of a new designation for rural hospitals as Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs). Designated CAHs are eligible for cost-based reimbursement for services provided to Medicare patients. In some states, including Arizona, additional reimbursement is also available for CAH services provided to Medicaid patients.
Your questions (and answers) are always welcome. Please send them as well as address changes to Jim Laukes, Editor, Rural Health Briefing.
|
