HITEQ Resources & Events

It is of critical importance to motivate and educate healthcare professionals on current critical privacy and security concepts and methods for defense of health data. Aspects of security awareness training, breach protection, incident response, and related topics all play a role toward organization-wide information protection. Healthcare cybersecurity is the ultimate team sport. The responsibility goes beyond the IT staff and includes front and back office staff, doctors and nurses, patients, executives, and the board of directors. The attached presentation is directed to all levels of the healthcare organization so that they may be proactive and aware.

As of CDC's 2017 National Diabetes Statistics Report, 30.3 million people, or 9.4% of the total U.S. population, have diabetes. Of these 30.3 million, only 23.1 million are diagnosed—while the other estimated 7.2 million are undiagnosed. Additionally, more than 1 in 3 adults or 84.1 million people in the U.S. have prediabetes, including nearly half of people age 65 and older. According to 2018 UDS data, an estimated 15.1% of Federally Qualified Health Center patients nationwide have diabetes, an increase over recent years. Of these approx. 2.4 million plus patients living with diabetes, approximately 33% have uncontrolled diabetes, with HbA1c equal to or above 9% or have had no test in the year. This has remained relatively stable since 2016. These statistics bring forth the need for improvement in the care of diabetes; several resources and research outcomes are profiled here with specific takeaways for health centers.

Patient privacy and confidentiality form a crucial component of the patient-doctor treatment relationship, particularly when seeking treatment for mental health or substance use disorders. Multiple federal privacy laws, in addition to state laws, provide privacy protections for mental health and substance use disorder treatment records, while permitting communication of these records to other healthcare providers, patients’ families, and others.

In the face of these overlapping laws, it can be difficult for patients, their families, and health professionals to understand: What exact information can be shared, with whom, and at what times? This resource aims to assist with these determinations.

This resource outlines specific guidance for optimizing EHRs and health IT tools commonly used by health centers to support the monitoring, reporting, and addressing childhood obesity.

Panel management is an essential function of a health center. When done well, it smooths the scheduling and operations of the health center; when done poorly it creates challenges with productivity, patient continuity, Quality Improvement reporting, and more. This resource offers guidance on improving panel management activities, including real-life examples from two health centers of the challenges and successes in managing panels.