|
|
|
Greetings Flex Program Colleagues,
The
Technical Assistance and Services Center (TASC) team would like to wish you all a happy new year!
Please save-the-date for the 2019 Federal Office of Rural Health Policy (FORHP) Flex Program Reverse Site Visit (RSV): July 10 - 11, 2019 in Washington, D.C. at the Marriott Wardman Park. The theme is Building Healthy Rural Communities and will focus on the Flex Program Areas and improving on the Core Competencies for State Flex Program Excellence. An emergency medical services (EMS) pre-meeting will be held at the same location the afternoon of July 9, 2019. All state Flex Programs are invited to attend the EMS Pre-Meeting.
This edition includes an update on supplemental work for TASC to provide you, and your hospitals and partners increased resources on EMS and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). Also included are a list of resources to support you while writing your fiscal year (FY) 2019 Flex Cooperative Agreement. Please note that all Federal Office of Rural Health Policy (FORHP) critical access hospital (CAH) Regulatory updates will now be posted in the Flex Program Forum.
As always, we encourage you to connect peer to peer on the Flex Program Forum. Do you have a question, idea, success or challenge t
o share with your Flex Program peers?
Don't miss the ongoing discussions on the
Flex Program Forum
! Please note that you will need to login to view posts - contact TASC for details.
Take care,
TASC Team
|
|
|
|
 FORHP Updates
Updates include:
- Flex and EMS Supplement Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) release
- Federal Financial Reports for FY 2017 due
- FY 2018 unspent funds
- Difference in awarding process between grant and cooperative agreement - webinar with more details to come
CAH Regulatory Update
Updates include:
- Opportunities for States to Better Serve Individuals Dually Eligible for Medicare and Medicaid
- Medicare Accountable Care Organization (ACO) Shared Savings Program (SSP) Redesigned and Renamed
|
|
Newsflash
Request for Breakout Session Proposals: 2019 FORHP Flex Program RSV
TASC and the Flex Program Reverse Site Visit (RSV) Planning Committee are seeking proposals for up to 15 60-minute breakout sessions at the 2019 Flex Program RSV, July 10-11, 2019 in Washington, DC.
The application can be accessed on the TASC website.
You will also find detailed information on:
- Breakout session format
- Proposal guidelines and scoring criteria
- Speaker expectations
The intended audience for the Flex Program RSV is State Office of Rural Health Directors, Flex Coordinators/other key Flex personnel (two per state), the Flex Monitoring Team (FMT), Stratis Health's Rural Quality Improvement Technical Assistance (RQITA) team, TASC
staff, TASC Advisory Committee, and
FORHP staff.
The RSV Planning Committee will assist in review and selection of sessions to help develop a conference program that is balanced by content and geography; to the extent possible, presenters will come from all regions of the country. The main contact person for each proposal submitted will be notified regardless of being selected or not.
TASC and FORHP were in Burlington, Vermont for an onsite technical consultation with the Vermont Department of Health and critical access hospital partners to discuss quality and financial improvement, EMS, and population health. We also explored ways to support rural hospitals in Vermont's transition to health care value.
Pictured: (back row) John Olson, Caleb Siem, Heidi Klein, Sarah Young, (front row) Sally Buck, Margaret Wilson
|
|
TASC Updates
Resources to Support Your Flex Program Cooperative Agreement Application
With the release of the FY 2019 Flex Program NOFO, we would like to remind you that TASC is available to review one component of your cooperative agreement application prior to your final submission (examples: work plan, narrative). If you would like assistance, please choose one section of your proposal for TASC to review.
Please submit your request to [email protected] by March 15, 2019 and allow us five business days to review.
TASC will respond with comments and suggestions, but we are unable to re-write content for you.
Fiscal Year (FY) 2018 Supplemental Funding Projects
With supplemental funding from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), FORHP, TASC is working on projects to address COPD, and EMS needs in rural communities.
COPD
The goal of the COPD Supplemental Project is to address rural disparities in COPD services and to provide resources and technical assistance to rural hospitals and provider-based clinics in order to address these
disparities
. The COPD Supplemental Project will result in the creation of a manual, a podcast series, dissemination of an assessment, and three webinars.
The components of the COPD Supplemental Project will address the following topics: the importance of addressing COPD services in rural America, the current landscape in rural, payment, workforce needs, clinical treatment, and technology. Please contact Caleb Siem at
[email protected] with any questions.
EMS
The goal of the EMS Supplemental Project is to better position state-wide and community-level EMS agencies to move towards value-based care. The EMS Supplemental Project will result in the creation of three manuals and an online assessment for EMS providers to determine their readiness for value-based payment systems in rural communities. A small group meeting will be held with rural EMS experts from around the country in Spring 2019 to develop key strategies to support the transition of rural EMS services to value models. In addition, there will be a RSV Pre-Meeting held in Washington, D.C. on July 9, 2019 for Flex Programs to share progress, challenges, successes, and lessons learned. Please contact Nicole Clement at
[email protected] with any questions.
- Mary Jane Clark, Illinois Flex Coordinator
- Melissa Van Dyne, Missouri State Office Director
- Lisa Carhuff, Georgia Flex Coordinator
Welcome:
- Lisa Lewis, West Virginia Flex Coordinator
|
MBQIP Updates
Updated Resources
Please send your MBQIP questions to the TASC email address
. TASC will ensure your question reaches the appropriate person.
|
|
Webinars, Recordings & Events
Save the Dates
February 13, 2019 l 2:00 PM Central Time
April 23 - 25, 2019 l
Duluth, Minnesota
July 9, 2019 l Washington, D.C.
July 10 - 11, 2019 l Washington, D.C.
Webinar Playbacks
|
|
New and Updated Resources
A full list of resources is available in the
TASC resource library
.
Health Information Technology (HIT)
Many more resources can be found on the
TASC website
by searching for key words in the search field.
|
|
|
|
|
