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In this SNI Bulletin:
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SNI
Launches Statewide, Two-Year Chronic Care Improvement Program
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Father of Chronic Care Model Meets with CAPH Board of Directors
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LA
County+USC Med Center Finds Medical Home
for Expensive Chronically Ill Patients
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Too Few Americans Being Screened, Counseled To Effectively
Manage Chronic Disease
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Diabetes Care Trainings from
Whittier Institute for Diabetes and Kaiser Permanente
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Patient
Visit Redesign: Third SNI Collaborative Seeing Great Results at Mid-Point
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Scholarships
from Kaiser Permanente for 2007 Institute for Healthcare Improvement programs
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CAPH/SNI Language Access Advisory Committee Meeting
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CHCF, NorCal Kaiser Fund Health Care Interpreter Network
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Pfizer
Program Seeks to Reduce Racial Health Disparities among Diabetes Patients
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San
Francisco General Hospital Featured
in SF Chronicle Series
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SNI
Welcomes New Staff
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New Items on SNI
Site
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Free
DVD: Pain Management/End-of-Life Care Videoconferences
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SNI
Launches Statewide, Two-Year Chronic Care Improvement Program |
SEED: Spreading Effective and Efficient Diabetes Care
in California’s Public Hospital Systems launched this month, with applications
distributed to the 15 eligible CAPH systems due February 9. The
two-year program, funded by the California HealthCare Foundation, will provide: collaborative
Learning Sessions, leadership development for chronic care spread leaders, onsite IT consulting
services related to disease registries, and the opportunity for $40,000 IT challenge grants
to increase registry functionality and efficiency. For more information, contact Hunter Gatewood, SNI Senior Program Associate or (510) 874-7103.
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Father
of Chronic Care Model Meets with CAPH Board of Directors |
Dr.
Edward Wagner, the man behind the Chronic Care Model (which summarizes the basic elements
for improving care in health systems at the community, organization, practice and patient
levels) met with the CAPH Board of Directors in Oakland on Jan. 19. He led a discussion
of chronic care improvement leadership and placed chronic disease management within the context
of the need for large-scale quality improvement efforts and primary care redesign (view his
presentation on the SNI website). His
visit to California was in support of the new SNI program SEED: Spreading Effective and Efficient
Diabetes Care in California’s Public Hospital Systems. For more information on
Dr. Wagner’s organization, Improving Chronic Illness Care, and on the Chronic Care
Model, click here.
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LA
County+USC Med Center Finds Medical Home for Expensive Chronically Ill Patients |
“About
40,000 people each year — about 22% of ER patients — go to the emergency room
at LA County-USC hospital with health problems that do not qualify as true emergencies”,
cites the Los Angeles Times in their Jan. 22 article about chronic users of the emergency
room in place of primary care. This type of overuse can put a strain on ERs which serve the
uninsured and working poor, and can elevate care costs to the breaking point. LAC+USC has
a budding program in place that identifies frequent users, provides case management, and
connects them with a primary care home, dramatically reducing hospital costs. Click
here to read the entire article.
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Too
Few Americans Being Screened, Counseled To Effectively Manage Chronic Disease |
The
latest data on health care quality indicates that the overall quality of the U.S. health
care system is improving, but providers are missing important chances to help Americans avoid
disease or serious complications, according to annual reports issued Jan. 11 by the Dept.
of Health & Human Services' (HHS) Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
The 2006 National Healthcare
Quality Report and National Healthcare Disparities Report both found that the use of
proven prevention strategies lags significantly behind other gains in health care. For example,
only 48 percent of adults with diabetes received all three recommended screenings—blood
sugar tests, foot exams and eye exams—to prevent disease complications. AHRQ estimates
about $2.5 billion could be saved each year by eliminating hospitalizations related to diabetes
complications.
This report adds
a measure of urgency to SNI’s newly launched chronic care improvement program, SEED (Spreading
Effective and Efficient Diabetes Care in California’s Public Hospital Systems).
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Diabetes Care Trainings Available
from Whittier Institute for Diabetes and Kaiser Permanente |
Please
see the SNI Calendar for
dates and fees for the four programs being offered by the Whittier Institute for Diabetes
in San Diego. Program titles are: Basics of Diabetes Care and Management; Demystifying
the Diabetic Diet; Initiating and Intensifying Insulin and Incretins: The Art & Science;
and 5-Day Comprehensive Diabetes Education and Management. CEUs are available for RNs and
RDs. To register, please email or
call (858) 626-5696.
In addition, Kaiser Permanente also provides FREE diabetes care management trainings
to community and public hospital health care providers. Attendees will learn diabetes management
therapies, increase patient care and education skills, discuss insulin therapy, and receive
CDE credits in the process. For more information, visit the SNI
Calendar.
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Patient
Visit Redesign: Third SNI Collaborative Seeing Great Results at Mid-Point |
The third CAPH/SNI Patient
Visit Redesign collaborative, with 10 clinic teams from six CAPH ambulatory care systems,
is showing amazing success since the transformative efforts of these teams began in August. The
cycle time for patient visits for this collaborative has been more than cut in half as the
collaborative holds its third of four Learning Sessions this week in Pasadena. The teams have also
increased provider productivity (patients per provider per hour) by 50% without shrinking
the time patients spend with their provider. Patients and staff are benefiting from
the teamwork and thoughtful,
fast action led by Coleman Associates. Learn more here on the process and philosophy of this very successful,
multi-year QI project that has updated and energized care in 33 CAPH clinics.
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Scholarships from Kaiser Permanente for 2007 Institute for Healthcare Improvement
programs |
Scholarships
are available now for 2007 IHI programs. The four programs below are being prioritized
by the scholarship program for 2007, though applications for other programs will be considered. Please
refer to the IHI website (www.ihi.org) for more information
about 2007 program offerings. Please refer to the SNI
website to learn more about the scholarship program and to complete the very short online
application.
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Spreading Change Jan.
31 to Feb. 1
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Redesigning Clinical Office Practice Mar.
25-27
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Managing Hospital Operations 5
month program, Feb. through Apr.
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Executive Quality Academy Mar.
18-21
Contact Hunter Gatewood with
questions. (Please
note: The very popular Hospital Redesign Summit program that was held in Atlanta last summer
is not being offered in 2007.)
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CAPH/SNI
Language Access Advisory Committee Meeting |
The
next CAPH Language Access Advisory Committee meeting will be held on the evening of Mar.
27 at the Westin LAX. This meeting will be a great opportunity for committee members to share
experiences, best practices, address challenges and support each other in the efforts to
improve language access for LEP patients in public hospitals. Among other things, committee
meetings have facilitated the sharing of a language identification sheet, or “point-to
card” which will soon be available on SNI’s website. Additionally, the committee
is in the process of piloting a clinician language assessment tool with Kaiser. The California
Endowment (TCE) will also be holding a March 28-29 conference, which is open to all CAPH
Language Access Advisory Committee members. If you have any questions please contact Erin
Bowman, Program Coordinator at SNI, at (510) 874-7119.
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CHCF, NorCal Kaiser Fund Health Care
Interpreter Network |
The
California HealthCare Foundation has approved a grant of $836,000, to expand the Health Care
Interpreter Network to four more CAPH member hospitals. This will expand the network to nine
CAPH member hospitals: San Joaquin General Hospital and its county health services, Contra
Costa Regional Medical Center and its county health services, San Mateo Medical Center, Rancho
Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center, Riverside County Regional Medical Center, LAC+USC
Medical Center, Olive View-UCLA Medical Center, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and Kern Medical
Center.
The grant also will support the legal and consultant costs of
a decision-making process that will determine a mechanism to assure CAPH members continued
and growing participation in HCIN.
In addition, Kaiser Permanente Northern California Community Benefits
has awarded HCIN $398,500 to improve quality assurance processes, and to conduct clinical
trials of American Sign Language on the HCIN system. The Contra Costa Regional Health
Foundation (acting fiscal agent of the HCIN) will house both grants. Implementation
of the expansion of the HCIN and development of the quality assurance processes and ASL clinical
trials will be conducted by Paras and Associates, the contracted manager of HCIN.
For more information contact, please contact Wendy
Jameson, (510) 874-7105.
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Pfizer
Program Seeks to Reduce Racial Health Disparities among Diabetes Patients |
The
drug company Pfizer on Wednesday announced that it has launched a no-cost, online toolkit
to help community health centers reduce racial health disparities, particularly among minorities
who have diabetes, United Press International reports. The toolkit is an online version of
a program (called Friends in Health, launched by the Pfizer subsidiary Pfizer Health Solutions)
that helps community-based health workers become a "bridge" between people with
diabetes and community and health system resources. A new Web site, AmigosEnSalud.com,
provides detailed steps that health organizations can take to recruit and train community-based
workers, develop and implement the program, and measure results. Registration is necessary
to gain access to the toolkit.
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San
Francisco General Hospital Featured in SF Chronicle
Series |
CAPH member San Francisco General Hospital was featured in a 4-part San Francisco
Chronicle series in December 2006. SNI board member Gene Marie O’Connell, Hospital Administrator of General since 1998, is often challenged with the
feat of managing over 3,000 employees, crises and budgets, while still ensuring quality health
care. Many wonder how she does it. O’Connell stated, “ Leadership is intuitive,
but you have to care about the people you're leading and care about what you're doing.” She
later added “. . . you have to have a sense of humor.”
During the week-long feature, other articles highlighted General’s trauma team,
its psyche ward, and continuity of care at the Family Health Center. Click
here to read the full-length articles.
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SNI
Welcomes New Staff |
SNI
is pleased to welcome two new staff members, Erin Bowman and Nicole Griffin. Erin Bowman,
Program Coordinator, brings a wealth of experience having headed up international health
programs in Benin working for the Peace Corps over the last three years. She has a
bachelors degree in anthropology from St. Mary's, where she was editor of the campus newspaper. Erin’s
work cuts across SNI’s program areas, including cultural competence, language access
and chronic disease management.
Nicole Griffin comes to SNI with 10+ years of experience in program and grant
management, collaboration and community organizing. She served in several capacities
at the Women's Health Collaborative within the Public Health Institute for 10 years, most
recently as Associate Director. She has a B.A. in English/Creative Writing. Nicole has
taken on much of the grants management duties at SNI. She also works on CAPH’s
LEAP II targeted advocacy program which aims to forward CAPH’s policy agenda and increase
political clout.
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New
Items on SNI Site |
Did
you know that new information is posted on the SNI
website weekly? Visit our website to find:
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Free
DVD: Pain Management/End-of-Life Care Videoconferences, 12 Hours |
SNI
has a small quantity of these DVDs to distribute and will ship these discs (formatted for
DVD player, PC, and Macintosh) on a first-come, first-served basis. The DVDs are a
donation from Kaiser Permanente from their Clinical Library, and were designed to satisfy
the 2006 CME requirements. Please contact Erin Bowman to
request this educational tool.
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