News

Featured in the July issue of WIREC Insider is an excerpt from a white paper authored by Qualis Health's Jeff Hummel, MD, MPH, and Peggy Evans, PhD, CPHIT. The Planned Care Model and the After Visit Summary discusses five steps to organize a visit in order to produce an after visit summary.

On July 2, the Idaho Department of Health & Welfare launched its Medicaid EHR Incentive Program. Interested providers can now register on both the national and the state level for incentive payments as they adopt, implement, upgrade and demonstrate meaningful use of certified EHR technology. Visit the Idaho Department of Health & Welfare website to learn more.

A newsletter for Nebraska Medicaid providers, the June edition of the Qualis Health Quarterly provides home health review updates, reminders for Gold Card Providers regarding August's audit and information about the statewide expansion of Physical Health Managed Care.

The second of two Engaged Leadership implementation guide supplements, this release from the Safety Net Medical Home Initiative (SNMHI) provides ideas and strategies that health center board members can use to help the centers they govern become high-performing patient-centered medical homes. Read Engaged Leadership Supplement Part 2: How Health Center Board Members Can Support Medical Home Transformation.

The Safety Net Medical Home Initiative's latest publication is a follow up to its Engaged Leadership implementation guide. The Resources for Leaders supplement is a compilation of recommendations by quality improvement specialists and healthcare system leaders engaged in patient-centered medical home (PCMH) transformation. Its purpose is to provide further tools, resources and training programs for leaders working to transform their practices into PCMHs.

As part of our Medicare Quality Improvement Organization contract, Qualis Health helps Idaho and Washington nursing homes reduce the use of physical restraints. While recognizing that quality improvement is a never-ending journey, it's important to celebrate the successes along the way. Grangeville Health & Rehabilitation Center recently reached a milestone in its falls reduction program by eliminating restraints and reducing alarms within two months. Read Grangeville Health & Rehabilitation Center's Success Story.

May's Washington & Idaho Regional Extension Center newsletter, WIREC Insider, features two practices that recently achieved Meaningful Use and winners of the Qualis Health Washington Award of Excellence in Healthcare Quality. You can also read regular columns such as "Meaningful Use Burning Issues" and "Health IT News."

Qualis Health—along with the National Association of Community Health Centers' Patient Centered Medical Home Institute and the MacColl Center for Health Care Innovation—will be partnering with American Institutes for Research (AIR) to serve on a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) contract to help Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) invest in patient care and infrastructure supporting 500 FQHC sites in achieving the goals of the CMS Demonstration.

Olympic Physicians, a practice located in Shelton, Washington, is included in the meaningful use case studies on HealthIT.gov, a website of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC). This case study profiles Olympic Physicans' journey with Qualis Health's Washington & Idaho Regional Extension Center (WIREC) consultants toward meaningful use.

Speakers Carl Serrato, PhD; Sally Retecki, MBA; Matthew Handley, MD; and L. Gordon Moore, MD, recently spoke to participants in the Safety Net Medical Home Initiative (SNMHI) on how Kaiser Permanente, Group Health and others have been using secure messaging with patients in their practices. View the webinar online or download the slides for Using Technology to Improve Access: Secure Messaging.

The April edition of Qualis Health's Communities for Safer Transitions of Care was distributed last week. The monthly briefing features the "Going Home from the Hospital" video, which aims to help patients avoid rehospitalization.

Selena Bolotin, LICSW, MSW, Qualis Health's Care Transitions Project Manager, presented "What Are Care Transitions (And Why It Matters)" at the April meeting of the Seattle-King County Advisory Council for Aging & Disability Services. This volunteer citizens group represents older adults and individuals with disabilities within the community.

Going from quarterly to monthly, the new edition of the Washington & Idaho Regional Extension Center's (WIREC) newsletter, WIREC Insider, is now available online. This issue includes information about Qualis Health's new Cardiac Learning & Action Network (LAN), helpful tips on successfully attesting to Meaningful Use for Medicare Eligible Professionals, “Clinical Summaries on the Patient Portal” by Trudy Bearden, PA-C, MPAS, CPHIT—plus the latest health IT news and more.

The Communities for Safer Transitions of Care project, part of Qualis Health’s Medicare Quality Improvement Organization (QIO) work, has introduced Monthly Briefing--a newsletter dedicated to care transitions and reducing readmissions. This monthly newsletter is targeted to providers and community partners across Idaho and Washington. It is intended to spread the news about local care transitions efforts. Read an excerpt from the first issue. Or you can subscribe and have the full edition emailed to you each month.

A new report posted on The Commonwealth Fund's website, Guiding Transformation: How Medical Practices Can Become Patient-Centered Medical Homes, "outlines and describes the changes that most medical practices would need to make to become patient-centered medical homes." The report includes co-authors from the Safety Net Medical Home Initiative (SNMHI): the MacColl Institute for Healthcare Innovation at the Group Health Research Institute's Edward Wagner, MD, MPH, and Katie Coleman, MSPH; Robert Reid, MD, PhD, MPH, from the Group Health Research Institute; and Qualis Health's Jonathan Sugarman, MD, MPH, President & CEO, and Kathryn Phillips, MPH, Director, SNMHI.

Qualis Health's workers' compensation utilization management program has been named a finalist in the "Managed Care: Utilization Management Program" category for a 2012 Case In Point Platinum Award. This awards competition recognizes successful and innovative case management programs across the country. Category winners will be announced on May 9, 2012.

In a December 15 webinar, Katie Bell and Prathiba Pinnamaneni of Seattle's Neighborcare Health presented a webinar for the Safety Net Medical Home Initiative. In it, they discussed why and how their clinics organized and optimized the role of the front desk staff. View Optimizing the Role of the Front Desk Staff online or download the slides; download the Neighborcare Tasking Guidelines.

The 2012 Idaho Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Conference will be held April 5-6 in Boise. This year's conference will focus on effective coordination to enhance patient care quality and safety when transferring from one setting of care to another. We are looking for speakers with innovative and informative messages based on the theme "Safety in Transitions" to share with the healthcare industry. Presentation proposals must be postmarked by Friday, January 20, 2012. Learn more about the conference.

The Safety Net Medical Home Initiative recently hosted webinars on Patient-Centered Interactions and Quality Improvement. View the presentation or download the slides for "Establishing Patient and Family Advisory Councils in the Medical Home." View the presentation or download the slides for "Using Data for Quality Improvement."

The Qualis Health Quarterly contains information for Nebraska healthcare providers. The September 2011 issue covers such topics as diagnosis codes for home health authorizations, home health clients with dual eligibility for Medicare and Medicaid, nursing services provided in school settings and more.

Unlike previous Washington & Idaho Regional Extension Center (WIREC) newsletters, the September 2011 edition of WIREC Insider is devoted to a single—and vital—topic patient engagement. With the help of Daniel Lessler, MD, MHA, who consults with WIREC and is Professor of Medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine and Associate Medical Director for Ambulatory Care Services at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, Washington, the WIREC Insider delves into this important subject.

The Safety Net Medical Home Initiative (SNMHI), a program of The Commonwealth Fund, Qualis Health and the MacColl Institute for Healthcare Innovation at the Group Health Research Institute, released two new guides in August. Elevating the Role of the Medical/Clinical Assistant: Maximizing Team-Based Care in the Patient-Centered Medical Home includes a curriculum and training materials for practices to enhance medical/clinical assistants' skills. QI Strategy Implementation Guide Part I: Choosing and Using a QI Framework contains an overview of quality improvement (QI) methods, information on two methods commonly used in patient-centered medical home transformation and more.

"Change Concepts" are general ideas used to stimulate specific, actionable steps that lead to improvement. "Organized, Evidence-based Care" is one of eight Change Concepts employed by the Safety Net Medical Home Initiative (SNMHI). Materials from two recent Organized, Evidence-based Care webinars are now available from the SNMHI. Download slides from the June 7 webinar, Organized, Evidence-based Care, or slides and audio/video from the July 11 webinar, Implementing Effective Clinical Care Management.

Qualis Health was recently honored with two 2011 Aster Awards—a gold for their new corporate website and a silver for their 2009-2010 Report to the Community. Recognizing healthcare organizations for excellence in their advertising and marketing efforts during 2010, the 2011 Aster Awards garnered approximately 3,000 entries from across the United States, as well as Canada and South America. Judging criteria included creativity, layout and design, functionality, message effectiveness, production quality and overall appeal.