Month: February 2021

Help Promote Free MAT Training for Clinicians

The National Health Service Corps (NHSC) continues to collaborate with the Providers Clinical Support System (PCSS) to connect clinicians to free Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT) training and professional development resources.

Why should clinicians complete MAT training and obtain a Drug Addition Treatment Act of 2000 (DATA 2000) waiver?

  • Be a part of the solution to our nation’s opioid epidemic.
  • Help increase access to comprehensive Substance Use Disorder (SUD) treatment in rural and underserved areas.
  • Become a priority applicant for some NHSC loan repayment programs.
  • Two NHSC Loan Repayment Programs (LRPs) – the NHSC SUD Workforce LRP and NHSC Rural Community LRP – give award preference to program applicants who have completed MAT training and obtained a DATA 2000 waiver.

Sign up for NHSC updates and learn more about the MAT training.

Click to View the Toolkit.

Learn about HRSA’s Coronavirus response at hrsa.gov/coronavirus

Webinar: Burnout & Healing in the Face of a Global Pandemic

Date: March 15, 2021

Time: 12:00 – 1:30 PM CST

Register Here!

When a person exhibits noticeable declines in work performance, attitude, and interactions with others, their colleagues and organizations are often quick to blame, punish, or even terminate employment. Some employers intuitively connect these behavior changes to signs of burnout or emotional injury and offer individual coping resources, such as breathing exercises or courses in mindfulness and work-life balance. These efforts, while well-intended and important, can seem hurtful if the causes of the burnout are structural as well as individual. In this session, Benjamin will use true stories of heroism and despair to humanize the impact of emotional injury and offer simple tools for structural changes that lead to recovery.

Presenter: Benjamin Anderson, VP of Rural Health and Hospitals of Colorado Hospital Association

Webinar hosted by the Missouri Primary Care Association. Contact Joni Adamson: jadamson@mo-pa.org with any questions.

Burnout & Healing in the Face of a Global Pandemic

Lilypad Announces the 2021 Top Rural Health Clinics

Portland, ME, January 5, 2021 – Lilypad, a leading healthcare analytics firm, is proud to announce the 2021 Lilypad Awards, the first and only ranking program for our nation’s 4,600+ rural health clinics. The Lilypad Awards recognize the Rural Health Clinics that outperform their rural primary care practice peers in terms of efficiency and operational excellence.  The Sikeston Health Care for All in Sikeston, Saint Francis Healthcare in Dexter, and The Clinic at Walmart in Dexter each earned Top 50 status.

Utilizing data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid program to calculate rural-relevant metrics across five domains, the Lilypad Awards provide a comprehensive and objective assessment of rural health clinic performance. The Lilypad Awards and Lilypad’s Practice Operations National Database (POND) programs are used nationally by rural clinics, State Offices of Rural Health, regional healthcare systems and rural hospitals to measure and monitor rural primary care practice performance. They serve as the foundation for several state and national rural primary care performance improvement initiatives.

In many cases Rural Health Clinics receive enhanced reimbursement from government payers such as Medicare and Medicaid as a means of sustaining financial solvency. Rural Health Clinics must meet one or more healthcare shortage designations to be eligible for the program and generally are categorized as either provider-based (hospital-owned) or independent. The Lilypad Awards evaluate both provider types to produce a comprehensive ranking system for every Rural Health Clinic in the nation. The Top Five organizations in each of five geographic regions have earned the 2021 Lilypad Award Top Clinic recognition. The full list of clinics that have earned 2021 “Lilies” is available at the Lilypad website and are listed in the Addendum to this press release.

“The COVID-19 pandemic underscores the importance of primary care in rural America, and Rural Health Clinics are an essential component of our healthcare safety net,” said Gregory Wolf, founder and President of Lilypad, LLC. “The Lilypad Awards seek to both inform the industry and public about the importance of Rural Health Clinics as well as recognize excellence among this group of providers. Our rural communities rely on affordable access to high quality primary care services and Rural Health Clinics play a vital role in strengthening our healthcare delivery systems, especially in the context of the pandemic.”

About Lilypad: Lilypad is a Maine-based analytics firm founded in 2011 to provide mobile and web-based performance improvement applications for healthcare provider organizations and State Offices of Rural Health. We adhere to a core business principle that accountable leaders require sound data and simple, innovative tools to be successful in their roles within the emerging value-based care delivery environment.

Webinar: HIMSS State Briefing: Leveraging Health Information & Technology to Address the Maternal Mortality Crisis

Date: March 18, 2021

Time: 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM CT

REGISTER

On behalf of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, Inc. (HIMSS), a global advisor and thought leader supporting the transformation of the health ecosystem through information and technology, and our partner Reach, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit global social impact organization, you, or a designee, are invited to participate in a unique virtual briefing about the use of health information and technology to combat the maternal mortality crisis in the U.S. The event is Thursday, March 18, 1:00-2:30 pm eastern time. 

Why should you attend?

Nearly 75% of maternal death and injury in the United States is preventable. Yet, the rates of mortality and morbidity are increasing in the United States. In fact, among all developed countries, the U.S. has the highest fatality rates due to pregnancy complications. Data from the World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and March of Dimes has shown that delays in seeking care, lack of transportation, delays in diagnosing, misdiagnosis, and treatment delays are the top preventable factors. Further, studies have shown the pandemic has exacerbated these situations.

States with the Highest Rates (World Population Review 2020)

  1. Louisiana
  2. Georgia
  3. Indiana
  4. New Jersey
  5. Arkansas
  6. Alabama
  7. Missouri
  8. Texas
  9. South Carolina
  10. Arizona

HIMSS and Reach, through national advocacy and the work of state chapters, pledge to diligently work with state, local, and tribal agencies in the ten states above to tackle the maternal mortality crisis. Your participation as a public health/healthcare IT leader also supports the HIMSS’ Global Health Equality Network (GHEN) and Accelerate Health’s Global Maternal Health Tech Challenge. The Maternal Tech Challenge is bringing together innovators, patient advocates, government, payers, providers, and the community to crowdsource solutions to this significant crisis and to serve as the vehicle to address underserved communities and improve health and healthcare for all populations. With your assistance, HIMSS and Reach will explore current state policy research and technology adoption for opportunities to secure women’s health and safety during the prenatal and postpartum periods. This meeting will also seek to raise awareness about the National Save Moms Campaign and the National Remote Maternal Health Monitoring Demonstration Project, which supports those states that are willing to adopt digital health technology to improve maternal health and wellness. 

If you have any questions or for more information, please feel free to contact Valerie.Rogers@himss.org.

Funding Opportunity: Health Center Program Service Expansion – School-Based Service Sites (SBSS, HRSA-21-093)

HRSA released a first-of-its-kind Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO), the fiscal year (FY) 2021 Health Center Program Service Expansion – School-Based Service Sites (SBSS, HRSA-21-093). SBSS funding will increase the number of patients receiving services through new and expanded school-based service sites. For this funding opportunity, service expansion is defined as new or expanded general primary medical care, behavioral health (mental health and substance use disorder), oral health, vision, and/or enabling services provided to health center patients at school-based service sites provided face-to-face or virtually.

Technical assistance (TA) resources, including a webinar overview of the NOFO, are available on the SBSS TA webpage.

FY 2021 SBSS applications are due in:

  • Grants.gov: Monday, March 22 (11:59 p.m. ET).
  • HRSA’s Electronic Handbooks: Tuesday, April 20 (5:00 p.m. ET).

HRSA will host a question and answer session for applicants:

Tuesday, March 2
2:30-3:30 PM CST
Join the day of the session

Funding Opportunity: MFH Opportunity Fund Focused on Partnerships and Testing Ideas That Tackle Systems-Level Challenges

ST. LOUIS, MO (February 18, 2021) – In 2017, Missouri Foundation for Health created the Opportunity Fund, a unique concept of changemaking designed to capture the best ideas from local communities, with hopes of creating long-term solutions to address our state’s most pressing health concerns. This community-centered approach is aimed at testing and supporting systems-level work designed to reduce health inequities.

After taking in the learnings from participants in the initial Opportunity Fund cycles, the Foundation recently relaunched the fund with a more mission-aligned process in place, strengthening efforts toward eliminating the underlying causes of health inequities, transforming systems, and enabling individuals and communities to thrive. Using various strategies, Opportunity Fund projects have addressed a broad array of issues to improve conditions that contribute to poor health. Previous concepts have included collaborating with a public-private partnership to build an agriculture park that increased access to healthy foods with space to enjoy the outdoors and joining a funder collaborative that invests in development strategies led by Black, Indigenous, people of color, and low-income communities.

“Through Opportunity Fund, we’re working with organizations on health problems, prioritized by the communities they serve, in ways that lead to greater understanding of the context, barriers, and solutions needed to move closer toward achieving health equity,” said Ryan Barker, MFH Vice President of Strategic Initiatives. “The results of the early cohorts have increased our knowledge and provided us a new perspective on certain topics.”

The Foundation is proud to announce that in 2020, there was a total of 38 projects, ranging from leading multi-sector collaboration efforts to challenging antiquated thinking, bringing forth some of the most innovative ideas to date.

The following list highlights just a few Opportunity Fund projects supported in 2020:

  • The T STL and University of Missouri — St. Louis: This community-driven project centers the voices of Black men to examine the root causes of racial inequities in substance use outcomes, establish shared priorities, mobilize community champions, and create nontraditional access points to treatment and harm reduction services to reduce overdose deaths among Black men in North St. Louis. 
  • PedNet Coalition: PedNet will lead a campaign, initially starting in Columbia, that prioritizes people walking, biking, and riding transit. Using multi-tiered advocacy strategies, PedNet will collaborate with underrepresented residents to develop the details of a street design policy in alignment with community needs, with the goal of replicating the effort throughout the state.
  • Second Judicial Court of Missouri: Through systems-wide collaboration with schools, behavioral health agencies, and the justice system, this project will support intentional and comprehensive prevention, treatment, and capacity-building efforts to build positive, safe environments for youth. This connected systems model aims to address juvenile violence and trauma and prevent youth from entering the justice system in rural northeast Missouri.
  • Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA):Working in partnership with six Missouri food banks throughout the state, PHA will conduct a one-year planning project to design a multi-year implementation effort to transform the charitable food system across rural and urban communities to ensure consistent, long-term access to healthier foods. PHA will help support this project through building organizational capacity, convening cross-sector partners, identifying policy opportunities, creating learning networks, and engaging local communities facing food insecurity.

On February 25, the Foundation will open the next round of request for concept papers for Opportunity Fund. This year, the Foundation is requesting ideas that focus on immigrants and refugees, older adults, and environmental justice.

To learn more about Opportunity Fund, please visit the website.

ABOUT MISSOURI FOUNDATION FOR HEALTH

Missouri Foundation for Health is building a more equitable future through collaboration, convening, knowledge sharing, and strategic investment. Working in partnership with communities and nonprofits, MFH is transforming systems to eliminate inequities within all aspects of health and addressing the social and economic factors that shape health outcomes. To learn more please visit mffh.org.

Engaging Federally Qualified Health Centers

To ensure our nation’s underserved communities and those disproportionately affected by COVID-19 are equitably vaccinated against COVID-19, Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are launching a program to directly allocate a limited supply of COVID-19 vaccine to select HRSA-funded health centers starting the week of February 15, 2021.

This will be an incremental effort as more vaccine becomes available and will be carried out in coordination with the jurisdictions and health centers. This program complements existing jurisdictional efforts to ensure equitable and effective access by providing an additional vaccine supply directly to targeted HRSA-funded health centers that specialize in caring for disproportionately affected populations.

Learn more about health center vaccine distribution.