This is the third of approximately 5 listening sessions HITEQ is hosting through the end of 2022. The purpose of these listening sessions is to understand the gaps in resources and guidance for health centers in specific areas of focus. HITEQ is bringing HCCNs and PCAs to the table for these in order to get the invaluable perspective of those who work with the health centers each day as well as where HITEQ can share valuable national insight.

PCAs and HCCNs who are working on SDoH-specific activities with their health centers, as well as those considering ways to assist their health centers with social risk screening joined for peer sharing. 

This HITEQ Highlights webinar presented promising practices and key considerations informed by health centers across the US who are successfully collecting, monitoring, and addressing social need data. 

Health centers are increasingly interested in implementing social need screening tools to identify ways to advance whole-person care and community-level health. However, implementing social needs screening tools requires a great deal of investment with regards to securing buy-in from leadership and staff, configuring the EHR, and developing processes and workflows for addressing positive screens. While addressing social needs in the context of healthcare is not new, systematically collecting, monitoring, and acting on data is an emerging space. With many health centers now trialing this implementation process, there are a number of promising practices that might be valuable to health centers considering this next step. This webinar offered key takeaways and examples to guide health centers through the implementation process, or help health centers with existing social needs screening programs to identify gaps and opportunities for improvement in their EHRs and workflows.

This was the second of the approximately 5 listening sessions HITEQ is hosting through the end of 2022. The purpose of these listening sessions is to understand the gaps in resources and guidance for health centers in specific areas of focus. HITEQ is bringing HCCNs and PCAs to the table for these in order to get the invaluable perspective of those who work with the health centers each day as well as where HITEQ can share valuable national insight.

PCAs and HCCNs who are working on SDoH-specific activities with their health centers, as well as those considering ways to assist their health centers with social risk screening should join for peer sharing. Register using the form below or email HITEQinfo@jsi.com to join!

The Streamlining IT Infrastructure for a Successful Telehealth Program learning collaborative series focuses on best practices, common solutions, key considerations, and other strategies for success when implementing telehealth technologies in a health center. Apply to join this health center learning collaborative here.  

Health centers will participate in four structured virtual sessions where they will engage with subject matter expert, Rachel Dixon, President and Executive Director of Prime Health, and in didactic learning and peer sharing and discussion. Session topics will include: assessing technology and identifying best practices for streamlining telehealth workflows,  aligning telehealth technology with financial sustainability, telehealth technology vendor considerations, and operationalizing telehealth technology strategies.

This series is particular to health centers and oriented to:

• Health centers that may have started a telehealth program, but pulled back and are not sure how to go forward, or

• Health centers that have started telehealth implementation, have some experience and are ready to take a step back and reassess the technology you are using, and

• Health centers that are ready to think about alignment of their telehealth strategy with long term financial stability.

Learning Collaborative Structure and Expectations: 

• All sessions will be hosted by HITEQ using Zoom Meeting and start at 12:00 ET.  The sessions will last about 90 minutes.

• The learning collaborative is open to staff of health center organizations across the nation. Primary Care Associations and Health Center Controlled Networks are welcome to attend with a health center in their network.

• It is ideal for health centers to identify a team of 2 – 3 multidisciplinary staff to attend each session. Teams may include staff in leadership, IT, quality improvement, and/or clinical roles.

• Sessions will be interactive and engaging. Participants are encouraged to join by video.

• Health center teams will have homework following sessions 1, 2 and 3.  

All sessions are scheduled to begin at 12:00 ET and will last 90 minutes. The session schedule is:

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The Streamlining IT Infrastructure for a Successful Telehealth Program learning collaborative series focused on best practices, common solutions, key considerations, and other strategies for success when implementing telehealth technologies in a health center. 

Health centers participated in four structured virtual sessions where they engaged with subject matter expert, Rachel Dixon, President and Executive Director of Prime Health, and in didactic learning and peer sharing and discussion. Session topics included: assessing technology and identifying best practices for streamlining telehealth workflows, aligning telehealth technology with financial sustainability, telehealth technology vendor considerations, and operationalizing telehealth technology strategies.

This series was particular to health centers and oriented to:

• Health centers that may have started a telehealth program, but pulled back and are not sure how to go forward, or

• Health centers that have started telehealth implementation, have some experience and are ready to take a step back and reassess the technology you are using, and

• Health centers that are ready to think about alignment of their telehealth strategy with long term financial stability.

The Streamlining IT Infrastructure for a Successful Telehealth Program learning collaborative series focused on best practices, common solutions, key considerations, and other strategies for success when implementing telehealth technologies in a health center. 

Health centers participated in four structured virtual sessions where they engaged with subject matter expert, Rachel Dixon, President and Executive Director of Prime Health, and in didactic learning and peer sharing and discussion. Session topics included: assessing technology and identifying best practices for streamlining telehealth workflows, aligning telehealth technology with financial sustainability, telehealth technology vendor considerations, and operationalizing telehealth technology strategies.

This series is particular to health centers and oriented to:

• Health centers that may have started a telehealth program, but pulled back and are not sure how to go forward, or

• Health centers that have started telehealth implementation, have some experience and are ready to take a step back and reassess the technology you are using, and

• Health centers that are ready to think about alignment of their telehealth strategy with long term financial stability.

The Streamlining IT Infrastructure for a Successful Telehealth Program learning collaborative series focused on best practices, common solutions, key considerations, and other strategies for success when implementing telehealth technologies in a health center. 

Health centers participated in four structured virtual sessions where they engaged with subject matter expert, Rachel Dixon, President and Executive Director of Prime Health, and in didactic learning and peer sharing and discussion. Session topics included: assessing technology and identifying best practices for streamlining telehealth workflows, aligning telehealth technology with financial sustainability, telehealth technology vendor considerations, and operationalizing telehealth technology strategies.

With the onset of the COVID-19 State of Emergency, in March 2020, Community Care Cooperative (C3) and the Mass League of Community Health Centers (League) both identified the critical need to support health centers to pivot to telehealth and COVID-19 care, in order to continue to meet the needs of the low income, diverse communities they serve and to remain in sound financial position. A grant from the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation provided the opportunity to form the MA FQHC Telehealth Consortium, providing support to FQHCs across Massachusetts. With the involvement of the CEOs and CMOs of the Consortium health centers, the League and C3 have designed a “Maturity Model” that provides a holistic roadmap for building a telehealth platform that is fully integrated into the primary care team, enhancing providers’ ability to address the physical, behavioral, and social needs of the complex, diverse patients served.

This webinar gave participants the opportunity to learn about the successes and ongoing work to advance telehealth in Massachusetts and critical areas for continued focus and resources to enable equitable access to telehealth.

Primary care plays a key role in ending the HIV epidemic. The Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative launched across HHS in 2019, setting forth four key strategies also called the “four pillars” of ending the HIV epidemic. Primary care in federally qualified health centers figures centrally into these efforts, evidenced by the addition of several HIV screening and prevention measures and metrics in the Uniform Data System (UDS) reporting. This webinar reviewed the outcomes of the first year of HIV Screening and Prevention reporting on the UDS, highlight opportunities for quality improvement, and discussed funding opportunities.

With the highly mobile modern workforce and travel resuming for the general public, it can become increasingly complicated for health centers to ensure proper reporting of relevant cases to all jurisdictions having oversight on either our operational area or the patient’s residence. To address these concerns, reduce public health reporting burden, and ensure comprehensive reporting for optimal public health management, the CDC electronic case reporting effort had created the eCR Now tool and the MedMORPH FHIR app. As of October 1, 2021, more than 9,400 facilities are actively sending COVID-19 electronic initial case reports to public health using eCR Now and related tools. On the basis of eCR Now, CDC is further developing the MedMORPH (Making EHR Data More Available for Research and Public Health) project to also incorporate additional public health and research support. This webinar introduced health centers to both projects, and showed the roadmap toward automated public health reporting without human intervention.

This two session roundtable series brought together CIOs, CISOs, and other IT leadership from health centers to discuss strategic investments in cybersecurity, including those that can leverage recent ARP funding but sustain beyond the coming years. Participants had the opportunity to connect with each other and subject matter experts about implementation, considerations, and the future of cybersecurity and data protection in health centers.

This two session roundtable series brought together CIOs, CISOs, and other IT leadership from health centers to discuss strategic investments in cybersecurity, including those that can leverage recent ARP funding but sustain beyond the coming years. Participants had the opportunity to connect with each other and subject matter experts about implementation, considerations, and the future of cybersecurity and data protection in health centers.

The Virtual Engagement for Professionals: Center of Excellence (COE) met over six sessions to identify and promote promising practices for optimal, virtual training and technical assistance engagement. COE collaborators hosted facilitated discussions, offered peer-learning opportunities, and published training and technical assistance (T/TA) highlights and successes. The audience for this COE was PCAs, HCCNs, NTTAPs, and health centers who were interested in contributing to national T/TA efforts or engaging their own employees or peers through virtual modalities.This session addressed how to support a T/TA portfolio with technology, including success with evaluation, virtual tools to monitor TTA, and use of data for TTA.

The Virtual Engagement for Professionals: Center of Excellence (COE) met over six sessions to identify and promote promising practices for optimal, virtual training and technical assistance engagement. COE collaborators hosted facilitated discussions, offered peer-learning opportunities, and published training and technical assistance (T/TA) highlights and successes. The audience for this COE is PCAs, HCCNs, NTTAPs, and health centers who were interested in contributing to national T/TA efforts or engaging their own employees or peers through virtual modalities. This session addressed dissemination of information such as findings and publications through social media and other online channels.

The Virtual Engagement for Professionals: Center of Excellence (COE) will meet over six sessions to identify and promote promising practices for optimal, virtual training and technical assistance engagement. COE collaborators hosted facilitated discussions, offered peer-learning opportunities, and published training and technical assistance (T/TA) highlights and successes. The audience for this COE is PCAs, HCCNs, NTTAPs, and health centers who are interested in contributing to national T/TA efforts or engaging their own employees or peers through virtual modalities. This session will focused on succcessful peer learning and virtual discussion including breakout groups.

The Virtual Engagement for Professionals: Center of Excellence (COE) meets over six sessions to identify and promote promising practices for optimal, virtual training and technical assistance engagement. COE collaborators hosted facilitated discussions, offered peer-learning opportunities, and published training and technical assistance (T/TA) highlights and successes. The audience for this COE is PCAs, HCCNs, NTTAPs, and health centers who are interested in contributing to national T/TA efforts or engaging their own employees or peers through virtual modalities. This session focused on webinar engagement, including prep for webinar to encourage engagement as well as use of polls, chat, etc.

The Virtual Engagement for Professionals: Center of Excellence (COE) will meet over six sessions to identify and promote promising practices for optimal, virtual training and technical assistance engagement. COE collaborators will host facilitated discussions, offer peer-learning opportunities, and publish training and technical assistance (T/TA) highlights and successes. The audience for this COE is PCAs, HCCNs, NTTAPs, and health centers who are interested in contributing to national T/TA efforts or engaging their own employees or peers through virtual modalities.This session focused on project collaboration, including recruitment, participant management, work plan tracking, and collaborating on specific tasks or projects.

The Virtual Engagement for Professionals: Center of Excellence (COE) will meet over six sessions to identify and promote promising practices for optimal, virtual training and technical assistance engagement. COE collaborators will host facilitated discussions, offer peer-learning opportunities, and publish training and technical assistance (T/TA) highlights and successes. The audience for this COE is PCAs, HCCNs, NTTAPs, and health centers who are interested in contributing to national T/TA efforts or engaging their own employees or peers through virtual modalities. This session will focus on real-time collaboration tools that encourage and capture collaborative discussions in real-time.

This was the first of the approximately 5 listening sessions HITEQ is hosting through the end of 2022, focused on Success with SDoH Screening during COVID and Beyond.

Health centers have the power to analyze their UDS data through the HITEQ UDS Clinical Quality Dashboards, which were recently updated with the latest UDS data to include 10 years' worth of clinical information. HITEQ hosted a webinar to learn about the multiple ways that the dashboards can present your organizations’ clinical data across years, and compare it to customized comparison groups of other health centers, to explore potential drivers of results. The HITEQ UDS Clinical Quality Dashboards have evolved and improved each year to provide new analysis options. The Dashboards present the UDS data in a flexible and readily understandable graphical format and deliver an organization-specific version of the content to each health center, HCCN, and PCA via a web interface built on Tableau. Each organization's access allows them to see the data relevant to their center while protecting the data of other organizations.

Health centers, HCCN, and PCAs joined HITEQ to see how the dashboards can provide them with data to answer many questions such as: 

• As a homeless health center, how does our clinical quality compare to homeless health centers nationally?
• As a small health center, which we choose to define as those with <10,000 medical patients, does it appear that our size is a driver of our clinical results compared to other health centers?
• How have the trends in my clinical outcomes over the past 5 years compared to similar health centers in states that I consider relevant to mine?