Why should you include data collection methods in your Community Health Assessment (CHA) toolkit? A CHA is like an electronic health record for a county, Metropolitan Statistical Area or region. Done well, the CHA captures clinical and social needs, informs options for new service delivery, facilitates collaboration among community stakeholders and ultimately can impact health outcomes.  Public health departments today must collect data on everything from diabetes outcomes to housing, income, immunizations and many other measures. Read on for the top methods for collecting the most challenging yet insightful data.  Community Health Assessment data collection methods  Like an EHR, the CHA includes defined components. The National Association of County and City Health Officials’ Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnerships (MAPP 2.0) model has several components and three assessments under the MAPP 2.0 model Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnerships...

Want to supercharge your health and total cost of care strategy? Medicare Accountable Care Organizations can now access CMS shadow bundle data.   This is a unique opportunity for ACOs and clinically integrated networks to reap benefits without assuming any additional financial risk. These benefits include:  improving care delivery;  managing episodes of care within their population; and  promoting engagement with specialists as partners.  If you're ready to do more with your data, continue reading for a complete shadow bundle data overview. We'll examine the four main benefits and discuss how they can help supercharge your analyses. 4 Main shadow bundle benefits  Before we dig in, here’s a brief outline of shadow bundles. Also, use our shadow bundles opportunity analysis info sheet for a quick overview.  What? Shadow bundles capture episodes of care within a defined patient population. CMS’ shadow bundle data for ACOs mirrors the specifications o...

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality defines patient safety culture as "the extent to which an organization's culture supports and promotes patient safety." Patient safety culture is influenced by the values, beliefs and norms of healthcare practitioners and other staff. Since these concepts tend to be abstract, organizations looking to improve their patient safety culture must focus on identifying and measuring patient safety-related behaviors.  In this introductory blog, we'll touch on the importance of patient safety data and how it can help create a baseline. From there, you can gain a clearer idea of how to benchmark your facility to create effective patient safety culture improvement strategies.  Why collect patient safety data?  The best way to examine patient safety culture at the department, organization and system levels is to measure data. An organization can implement many different patient safety culture strategies. However, for them to be most...

On Jan. 9, the Biden administration and CMS approved New York state's $7.5 billion Medicaid Section 1115 demonstration amendment. This New York Health Equity Reform amendment includes nearly $6 billion in federal funding, effective until March 31, 2027.   Using these funds, "NYS seeks to build on the investments, achievements, and lessons learned from the Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment (DSRIP) 1115 waiver program to scale delivery system transformation, improve population health and quality, deepen integration across the delivery system, and advance health-related social need (HRSN) services," according to the New York State Department of Health .  Under CMS’ 1115 waiver, participating New York state primary care practices with Patient-Centered Medical Home recognition from the National Committee for Quality Assurance are eligible to receive increased Medicaid Incentive Payment.   Specifically, under Population Health, one of the three main NYHER progr...

Statewide Planning and Research Cooperative System (SPARCS) data resubmissions impact a hospital or ambulatory surgery center’s ability to meet New York state requirements for clean patient discharge and visit records. But if you can resolve friction points created by SPARCS errors, you’ll have more resources available to focus on delivering affordable, quality care.   In this blog, we’ll go over how inefficient SPARCS data processing can impact your facility. Then, we’ll cover how you can optimize the process to achieve the three main benefits of automated SPARCS data submission.   How inefficient SPARCS data processing impacts facilities  SPARCS data provides DOH with details on each hospital’s inpatient stays and outpatient and ASC visits. If a facility submits data with errors, it must dedicate additional time to rework and resubmit claims data. This could lead to increased  compliance risks , DOH formal Statement of Deficiency and delay your  Cert...