As health centers have newly established, scaled and/or enhanced their telehealth services during the pandemic year, they have navigated a variety of challenges, including policy and practice changes, logistics of implementation, privacy and security considerations, connectivity issues, ensuring quality services and patient and provider satisfaction. As health centers continue to refine their telehealth services amidst a changing context, the HITEQ Center is pleased to offer a panel of telehealth experts to address health center questions.  Panelists offer expertise in: set up and implementation of telehealth; clinical workflows, roles and training; hybrid care; patient-centered services; remote patient monitoring; telebehavioral health; telehealth optimization, maturity and performance management.

View the HITEQ Center's Telehealth Operations and Quality: Ask Anything  session. The session,  moderated by HITEQ’s Training and Technical Assistance Advisor, Natalie Truesdell, will provide an open forum for health centers to ask panelists their most pressing questions about telehealth services in the health center setting, such as:

• How can we fully integrate telehealth into our overall care delivery model?
• What are the ways in which telehealth may alleviate and/or add to provider burden?
•  Can you describe other health centers’ experiences with the unintended consequences of transitioning to telehealth?
• How do we ensure health equity when refining our telehealth and in-person care?
• What recommendations do you have for patients with limited digital proficiency?
• What might be the best approach to optimizing care for patients with chronic conditions?
• How can we improve our care team communication when so many staff are working remotely?
• What recommendations do you have for quick training of providers on patient interaction through telehealth?
• How can telehealth be more than a ‘transactional’ interaction?
• Can it be used to provide more touchpoints through different levels of care?
• What's the best way to assess telehealth success?

Please note: This session will be focused on telehealth operational and quality questions, and will not cover questions related to telehealth reimbursement, financing or policy changes at the state or federal level.

The session features the following panelists:

• Emma Ansara,  RN, MS, MA, FNP-C, Integrated Care Expert at the HITEQ Center
• Samantha Lippolis, MPA, Physician Practices Telemedicine Advisor & Consultant with Ingenium Digital Health Advisors
• Shane McBride, MBA, Founder & CEO of Chiron Strategy Group
• Christian Milaster, MS, Founder & CEO, Digital Health Transformation Advisor & Consultant with Ingenium Digital Health Advisors

The  60 minute session will start with panelists answering questions submitted by health centers during registration for the event.

Objectives

• Provide information and guidance to health centers across a variety of telehealth topics.
• Share ideas, tactics, and resources for implementing and optimizing telehealth services and virtual care

Healthcare continues to be the sector most targeted globally by ransomware and related malware attacks and leads in the average total cost of data breach across industries. The FY 2021 American Rescue Plan Funding provides an excellent opportunity for Health Centers to make strategic investments in cybersecurity infrastructure and services. This HITEQ Highlight, presented by Adam Kehler of Online Business Systems provides an overview of assets that can increase Health Center cybersecurity. Topics covered include cybersecurity infrastructure and services that can increase defense-in-depth for health IT, including EHRs, telehealth tools and services, mobile medical devices, patient portals, and related health information software applications.

Note: You can view our American Rescue Plan: Budget Your Cybersecurity Investments guidance document in the Documents to Download section below. An accessible version of the handout is is also available in the Documents to Download section. 

We can only End the HIV Epidemic if we work together, and that includes data sharing. Sharing important information, such as HIV test results, can help ensure optimal care for people at risk for or living with HIV coming to or from different health centers. Check out these strategies and tools to learn some tried and true strategies for data-sharing between health centers. 

The HITEQ Center led a learning collaborative for health centers on Addressing Provider Burden. This learning collaborative provided a space for discussion and sharing compassionate, well designed, and digital-first solutions. Health center participants had the opportunity to discuss interventions, implementation, training, and ongoing support for meaningfully integrated digital solutions to effectively support reducing provider burden.

This learning collaborative provided health centers a series of four structured virtual sessions to engage with subject matter experts and their colleagues in peer-to-peer learning and discussion. Topics included EHR best training practices, workflow support, and documentation support. Throughout the series, participants were encouraged to consider the broad scope of provider burnout and the opportunities their particular settings may have for meaningful interventions.

All sessions are scheduled to begin at 1:30 ET and will last between 60 - 90 minutes. The session schedule is:
--June 9: Session 1 - Scoping Provider Burnout as a Problem with a Solution
--June 23: Session 2 - EHR Training Best Practices
--July 14: Session 3 - Workflow and Documentation Support
--July 28: Session 4 - Provider Burnout Round-Up

Health centers interested in participating in the upcoming learning collaborative series can submit one registration form on behalf of their health center. Health center registrations can include up to three participants in their form.

Session 2 discussed the questions of effectiveness, timing, and structure of EHR training to prevent provider burnout.

The HITEQ Center hosted a learning collaborative for health centers on Addressing Provider Burden. This learning collaborative provided a space for discussion and sharing compassionate, well designed, and digital-first solutions. Health center participants had the opportunity to discuss interventions, implementation, training, and ongoing support for meaningfully integrated digital solutions to effectively support reducing provider burden.

This learning collaborative provided health centers with a series of four structured virtual sessions to engage with subject matter experts and their colleagues in peer-to-peer learning and discussion. Topics from these series included EHR best training practices, workflow support, and documentation support. Throughout the series, participants were encouraged to consider the broad scope of provider burnout and the opportunities their particular settings may have for meaningful interventions.

All sessions are scheduled to begin at 1:30 ET and will last between 60 - 90 minutes. The session schedule is:
--June 9: Session 1 - Scoping Provider Burnout as a Problem with a Solution
--June 23: Session 2 - EHR Training Best Practices
--July 14: Session 3 - Workflow and Documentation Support
--July 28: Session 4 - Provider Burnout Round-Up

Health centers interested in participating in this learning collaborative series can submit one registration form on behalf of their health center. Health center registrations can include up to three participants in their form.

This session focused on assisting with workflow and documentation improvements like standing orders, huddles and alerts; telehealth/ hybrid care workflows; and optimizing templates, documentation guidance, tracking regulatory/ reimbursement changes that require documentation changes, and more. The speaker shared tools to assist with documentation such as scribes, tailoring favorites/ smart phrases/ shortcuts, etc.