Childhood Obesity Preventer

As health centers have expanded their services for behavioral health and substance use disorder treatment, justice-involved members of the community are one part of the population that can benefit by the expansion of services and access. Treatment for SUD during incarceration has shown to reduce recidivism, but is challenging to provide due to constraints posed by space limitations, workforce turnover, and difficulties in maintaining continuity of care. Telehealth and remote services during COVID-19 further expanded opportunities for health centers to consider partnerships to support justice involved populations. Yet, there are operational, technology, and cultural barriers to collaboration with jails, prisons, and the drug courts. Join us to learn from two inspiring health providers- Harris Health (Texas) and Community Medical Centers Inc. (California) that have made a commitment to offering care to justice -involved patients, and their journeys to build positive partnerships improving access to service

In this HITEQ Highlights webinar, we focused on the intersection of telehealth strategy and operations. One health center's experience of leveraging telehealth as a tool for expanding service delivery and patient access will be a jumping off point from which to consider the benefits (and challenges) of dedicated telehealth resources within an organization. Participants learned how telehealth might benefit recruitment efforts and review relevant resources for ongoing telehealth support.

This training guide provides patients with knowledge and awareness about cybersecurity threats to protect their personal health data and to minimize risks from computer viruses and malware.

Health centers are increasingly interested in embedding oral Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) programs into primary care, which calls for the embedding of PrEP care processes into electronic health record (EHR) systems. Health centers have had success with automation in HIV testing, and are looking to apply automated algorithms, order sets, and templates to the development of PrEP programs. This resource outlines EHR and health information technology (IT) configurations and tools that support PrEP care processes and provides examples of successful implementation from health centers and primary care settings.

As health centers are charting their path forward with telehealth after the public health emergency ends, it will be critical to have methods in place to comprehensively assess the current experiences, capabilities, attitudes, and preferences of providers. Telehealth program improvements should be grounded in a real understanding of these factors to ensure readiness of all providers. This question bank serves as a collection of questions that can be used to assess health care providers’ perspectives on telehealth. Users of the question bank can select questions that most closely match their needs and use those to create a survey, or to supplement existing surveys. Surveying primary care providers can provide valuable insights that can help organizations improve their telehealth programs, support their providers, and ultimately provide better care to their patients.

Health center utilization of telehealth advanced in leaps and bounds since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. In 2019, fewer than 500,000 visits in health centers nationwide were provided via telehealth, and in 2020, over 28 million visits were conducted virtually as reported in the Uniform Data System (UDS).¹
Massachusetts leadership and learning in telehealth have been a collaborative effort between Community Care Cooperative (C3) and the Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers that together formed the FQHC Telehealth Consortium. In April 2020, the FQHC Telehealth Consortium began leadership calls with participating health centers to make progress on long-term telehealth strategy, with an initial focus on patient access and health center revenue. The FQHC Telehealth Consortium worked with Massachusetts health centers to develop a vision of telehealth maturity advancement and measurement specific to health centers, which, in turn, led to the development of a telehealth maturity model assessment tool to be applied across five domains.² This tool was used to conduct interviews in telehealth maturity in summer/fall 2020 and again in summer/fall 2021. The key objectives of measuring telehealth maturity were to:

1. Understand successes in implementation over the 18-month period from March 2020 through September 2021.
2. Identify areas for continued development and refinement of telehealth models in health centers in order to sustain telehealth past the pandemic.

In 2021, interviews, using the maturity assessment tool, were conducted with health center leaders from each of 34 Masssachusetts health centers. The tool assesses telehealth advancement across the domains of strategy and leadership, clinical integration, people, technology, and reimbursement and policy. During the 34 interviews, themes emerged as to where health centers need to focus their efforts to advance, as well as best practices and recommendations. This resource summarizes those themes, organized by experience, what to do now, and next steps, within each of the five domains. The intent is for the experiences of Massachusetts health centers to inform others across the country.

¹Health Center Program Uniform Data System (UDS) Data Overview 

² HITEQ Center - Assessing Telehealth Maturity in Health Centers: A report out on the progress of Massachusetts health centers in advancing telehealth during a pandemic

Download the resource in the Documents to Download Section below.

Under-resourced organizations that adopt telehealth platforms or other patient-facing digital tools rapidly, but not comprehensively, have the potential to increase safety vulnerabilities and decrease access for the most marginalized patients. This brief assessment contains questions that health centers can ask potential vendors to ensure their tools support equitable access and address the needs of the health center's population.

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.