Welcome and Farewell

Welcome to:

• Nick Galvez, Flex Coordinator, North Carolina

 

We encourage you to keep your Flex staff contact information current by completing the Flex Contact Information Form as soon as possible whenever there are changes in your office. Please review your contacts as listed in your State Flex Profile and complete the form as necessary for any additions or changes.

Hi Flex Coordinators,

I greatly enjoyed seeing representatives from all 45 state Flex Programs in Washington, DC, last week. What did you think of the 2018 Rural Health Care Improvement Collaboration with both the Flex and Small Health Care Provider Quality Improvement (SHCP) Programs meeting together? Please be specific when you fill out the meeting evaluation you received by email and let us know what went well and what we could improve next year.

Since they happen at the same time, I missed 10 of the 14 breakout sessions and, unless you've figured out how to be in two places at once, you did too. We can still learn from the sessions we couldn't attend, though. All of the presentations for both Flex and SHCP are on the TASC website.

We have so much to learn from each other as we engage with critical access hospitals (CAHs), rural emergency medical services, and each other to measure our impacts and improve rural health care. We started great conversations in DC. Let's continue them together in the Flex Forum.

Of course, the Flex award cycle never stops as you saw in the busy timeline in my program coordinator's update. The Notices of Award (NOAs) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2018 will come out in August and the Performance Improvement and Measurement System (PIMS) will open for FY 2017 reporting on September 1.

As you are thinking about writing the next Flex application in December, let us know if there are topics you would like to discuss or tools and technical assistance resources we should review. Should we talk about the Flex Logic Model? Data you could include in your needs assessment? The top CAH financial indicators? How to identify promising quality improvement projects? Something else?

I'm looking forward to more great conversations with you. 

Sarah Young

Flex Program Coordinator

Webinar Dates

Led by

• Pat Schou, Executive Director of the Illinois Critical Access Hospital Network

Objectives

Audience

• SHIP Coordinators

Conference Call Number: (877) 273-4202

Conference Room Number: (pass code): 7211234# 

Adobe Connect: Webinar Link

Availability of Respiratory Care Services in Critical Access and Rural Hospitals 

This policy brief examines the availability of respiratory care services and respiratory therapists in critical access hospitals and in rural and urban prospective payment system hospitals. 

This study from the Flex Monitoring Team  identifies  peer groupings of CAHs for analyzing quality performance. The study addresses the question: what is the best way to compare quality performance across CAHs that have different organizational characteristics, such as size, scope of services offered, structure and location.

Rural Response to the Opioid Crisis 

The Rural Response to the Opioid Crisis shares activities underway to address the opioid crisis at the national, state and local levels. The guide, developed by Rural Health Information Hub (RHIhub), identifies initiatives and funding opportunities, rural program examples and tools and resources focused on prevention, harm reduction and treatment. 

 

TASC Tasks 

Please feel free to post your questions in the Flex Program Forum. If you have a question, someone else likely does too and will benefit from seeing the question and answer.

Ira Moscovice, Mayo Professor in the Division of Health Policy and Management at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health and Primary Investigator of the Flex Monitoring Team (FMT), was awarded the 2018 Calico Leadership Award at the State Flex Program Reverse Site Visit held July 17-18 in Washington DC.  

Dr. Moscovice has served on numerous rural health and health services research and policy advisory committees for federal agencies and private foundations. He has served as the principal investigator for numerous rural health projects, written extensively on issues related to rurla health quality with over 130 peer-reviewed publications.

New Substance Use Resources 

• Opioids: Frequently Asked Questions
• This document provides answers to frequently asked questions about the opioid crisis that affect health care coalitions, health care entities, providers, emergency managers and public health practitioners

• Opportunities for Engaging Partners to Prevent Opioid Overdose-related Deaths
• Preventing opioid overdose requires collaboration with a diverse range of partners, some familiar and some new to the world of prevention. This tool presents different sectors prevention practitioners may want to engage in opioid overdose prevention efforts, along with opportunities for meaningful engagement. 

• Economic Opportunity and the Opioid Crisis: Geographic and Economic Trends
• This study examines relationships between indicators of economic opportunity and the prevalence of prescription opioids and substance use in the United States with three primary findings

• Opportunities to Enhance Community-Based Medication Management Strategies for People with Complex Health and Social Needs
• This document explores promising community-based medication management strategies that may be enhanced and expanded nationwide.

• Opioid Overdose Prevention Toolkit
• This toolkit offers strategies to health care providers, communities and local governments for developing practices and policies to help prevent opioid-related overdoses and deaths. Access reports for community members, prescribers, patients and families and those recovering from opioid overdose.

• Prevention Conversations: Changing the Conversation about Addiction

• A series of short videos produced by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), new videos are added regularly including mostly recently:

  • Addiction as a Disease-Not a Moral Failure
  • Addressing the Opioid Crisis: Prioritizing What Works
  • Examining Our Biases About People Who Misuse Opioids

Weekly Rural Health Leadership Radio Program 

 

A weekly radio program, Rural Health Leadership Radio , was launched a year ago to support rural health leaders to share stories and information about what is working and what is not. To read the story of the program's development, please visit an article promoting the resource from the National Organization of State Offices of Rural Health. Here are a few recent speakers:

• Jenna Bernson, Student, Michigan State University
• John Gardener, Telluride Regional Medical Center
• Kate Hill, The Compliance Team
• Katie Peterson, Pender Community Hospital
• Darrold Bertsch, Sakakawea Medical Center
• Scott Daniels, Hawaii Office of Primary Care and Rural Health

Connect Peer to Peer in Flex Program Forum  

Do you have a question, idea, success or challenge to share with your Flex Program peers? Don't miss the ongoing discussions on the Flex Program Forum .  Please note, you need to log in to read recent postings, which include:

If you have questions about the Flex Program Forum, please contact TASC.  

Critical Access Hospital (CAH) Recognition 

Are you interested in receiving quick, up-to-date information from the National Rural Health Resource Center? Like the National Rural Health Resource Center on Facebook and follow us on  Twitter and LinkedIn!