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.

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?

Drawing on recently published research from Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s EvidenceNOW initiative, Dr. Samuel Edwards shared insights for primary care practices seeking to assess and address provider burnout. Dr. Edwards highlighted associations between the use of quality improvement strategies, EHR capabilities, and satisfaction among practices with zero-burnout versus high-burnout. Key, and sometimes surprising, takeaways regarding leadership, workplace environment and culture, EHR use, and more from this research were discussed.

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. 

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.

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 this session 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.

In this final session, HITEQ facilitated a health center showcase (1-3 examples from participants) to highlight successes and troubleshoot challenges.

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.

Session schedule:
--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

During this session participants will meet one another, develop a shared definition of provider burnout and review the literature on provider burnout/burden to better understand where opportunities for meaningful interventions may exist.