June 7, 2023
Providing Care for LGBTQ+ Patients Using Telehealth
Telehealth can help improve access to quality care. Using telehealth appointments allows for a safe, convenient way for LGBTQ+ patients to access health care. Visit this page to learn best practices and access resources for providing quality LGBTQ+ telehealth care.
June 7, 2023
Supporting Patients with Remote Patient Monitoring
Remote patient monitoring (RPM) is a growing telehealth practice that allows health care providers to monitor a patient’s health from their own home. Providers can support patients in managing acute and chronic conditions and it can cut down on patients’ travel costs. Learn more about how to use remote patient monitoring and about billing and reimbursement.
June 6, 2023
Become a Pathfinder Hospital with the Rural Health Care Outcomes Accelerator
The American Heart Association® has opened applications for rural hospitals, like yours, to join the Rural Health Care Outcomes Accelerator. Participation in the accelerator connects hospitals across the country at no-cost, as pathfinders in quality improvement and patient outcomes.
Join peers, with the support of the American Heart Association, to optimize acute care and align with clinical practice guidelines, using resources built specifically to meet rural health care needs.
What is the Rural Health Care Outcomes Accelerator?
The Situation:
Americans living in rural areas face higher mortality rates than urban residents. Data indicates that rural residents are at a 30% higher risk of stroke, are 40% more likely to develop heart disease, and live an average of three years fewer than their urban counterparts.
Longer, Healthier Lives
In response to the discrepancy between rural and urban mortality, the American Heart Association has launched the Rural Health Care Outcomes Accelerator with the goal of ensuring that Americans living in rural areas have the best possible chance of survival and the highest quality of life attainable by promoting consistent, timely and appropriate evidence-based care.
Participation in the accelerator provides no-cost access to newly added quality improvement programs, 1-on-1 consultation, education and resources, and collaboration with a community of peers to support rural hospitals in achieving this goal together.
What is Included:
Learn more about the Rural Health Care Outcomes Accelerator at heart.org/ruralaccelerator
June 5, 2023
Highlighting Disparities During National Men’s Health Month
During June, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Office of Minority Health (CMS OMH) is recognizing National Men’s Health Month by encouraging men from populations that are underserved to prioritize their health and well-being.
Heart disease is the number one cause of death for men of most racial and ethnic groups in the United States, accounting for 1 in every 4 male deaths. Among Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) beneficiaries, men had a higher prevalence of ischemic heart disease (32.3%) than women (22.2%) in 2018. Men from minority populations are often disproportionately affected by heart disease and many of its risk factors, including high blood pressure. According to the CDC, hypertension was more common in Black (58.4%), Asian (51.9%), Hispanic and Latino (50.4%) men from 2015-2018 compared to White men (49.8%). Racial disparities are prevalent not only in heart disease, but also in prostate cancer, which is the second-leading cause of cancer death among males. In 2019, Black men had the highest rate of new cancer diagnoses, followed by White, Hispanic, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Asian and Pacific Islander men.
In addition to promoting men’s physical health this month, CMS OMH is highlighting the importance of men’s mental health. Since men are far less likely to seek mental health treatment than women due to stigma, their mental health concerns often go untreated. In 2021, the suicide rate among males was approximately four times higher than the rate among females. Though men make up 50% of the U.S. population, they represent nearly 80% of suicides.
National Men’s Health Month allows CMS OMH an opportunity to highlight racial and ethnic disparities in men’s health as well as the importance of physical and mental well-being for men of all backgrounds. We encourage you to share the below resources with the men in your community to help them take control of their health this month and all year.
Resources:
June 1, 2023
Guide to Using the Accountable Health Communities Health-Related Social Needs Screening Tool: Promising Practices and Key Insights
Click HERE to download “A Guide to Using the Accountable Health Communities Health-Related Social Needs Screening Tool: Promising Practices and Key Insights” from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
In this document, CMS describes the health-related social needs (HRSN) Screening Tool from the Accountable Health Communities (AHC) Model and share practices for universal screening.
HRSNs are individual level, adverse social conditions that negatively impact a person’s health or health care. HRSNs are distinguished from social determinants of health — the structural and contextual factors that shape everyone’s lives — and can be identified by the health care system and addressed in partnership with community resources.
Identifying and addressing HRSNs can have many benefits, including improvements to a person’s health and reduced health care spending.
Accountable Health Communities Health-Related Social Needs Screening Tool
June 1, 2023
Free Candida Auris Pocket Card for Your Staff
Candida auris is a yeast (type of fungus) that causes serious infections and can spread in health care settings.
It can spread through facilities via contact with contaminated environmental surfaces or equipment or from person to person.
Symptoms might not be noticeable because individuals infected with Candida auris are often sick with another serious illness or condition.
Click HERE to download pocket cards to share with staff in your facility to help them identify and stop the spread of Candida auris. For best results, print on card stock and flip on the long edge (to line up front side of card to back side). HQIN recommends laminating the page before cutting the cards to distribute. If laminating, print on regular copier paper and use a (heavy) 5 mil laminating pouch.
June 1, 2023
Simple Strategies: Team Approach to Improving Sepsis Reimbursement and Reputation
Health care staff in billing, coding, quality, clinical documentation integrity, utilization review, information technology, nursing and physician services have key roles in the administrative processes of sepsis.
Interdisciplinary collaboration between these roles can help ensure standardized processes are developed to avoid unnecessary impacts to reimbursement and reputation.
Click Here to Download this Resource
June 1, 2023
Opioid Resources for Patients and Caregivers
Opioid-related adverse events are a critical patient safety issue with added attention to preventing overuse.
Click here to download a summary of resources to support safe education.
June 1, 2023
Community Impact and Benefit Activities of Critical Access, Other Rural, and Urban Hospitals
The Flex Monitoring Team has released a new report on the community impact and benefit activities of Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs), and urban hospitals. The report enables State Flex Programs and CAH administrators to compare the community impact and benefit profiles of CAHs nationally to the performance of CAHs in their state.
The national report and state-specific reports can be found on the Flex Monitoring Team website.
May 30, 2023
Join OneLab TEST Today
Your agency or organization is invited to join OneLab TEST (Timely Education and Support of Testers). OneLab TEST is a new collaborative network developed to strengthen connections between the testing community and CDC to support the ever-increasing need to expand access to diagnostic testing.
OneLab TEST seeks to —
OneLab TEST provides support and resources to a variety of professionals and volunteers who perform testing at non-laboratory settings, such as:
Benefits of joining OneLab TEST:
OneLab TEST Featured Training – helps ensure that testing personnel have the basic training necessary to safely and accurately perform patient testing waived under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988.
View Course Overview Here
Here’s how to join:
Questions? Email OneLabTEST@cdc.gov.
Visit this page for more information about OneLab TEST.
