Dear CIN Colleagues,

December is a time that invites us to pause and reflect on where we have been and where we are heading in the new year. We at the CIN program office are grateful to all of you who support this community and engage passionately with our shared cause of improving the health of Californians – inside the medical office as well as at home, at work, and in our communities. We are also thrilled to be embarking on the next cycle of CIN with you.

We wish you and yours health and joy in this holiday season and throughout the new year!

Through extensive changes to care delivery and payment reforms, CalAIM will expand access to coordinated, whole-person care, and address health-related social needs for Medi-Cal enrollees. A recent webinar hosted by the Center for Health Care Strategies examined new approaches adopted by two health plans and one community-based organization offering housing services. It covered:

Support for Encounter Data Quality Improvement

Reliable encounter data is essential for tracking health care quality and value, monitoring population health trends, providing care coordination, identifying deficiencies or gaps in care, and determining payment rates. Health care providers and health plans now have access to more tools and promising practices to help them improve encounter data quality. In the Integrated Healthcare Association’s Encounter Data Resource Hub, users can find guidance and downloadable tools to accelerate improvement efforts.

For example, learn how to review, problem-solve, and analyze encounter data coding or procedural standards for adoption. Or access a framework and checklist with concrete steps to improving encounter data timeliness and accuracy in a community health center setting.

Looking for leadership inspiration? The Social Interventions Research and Evaluation Network's (SIREN) three-day National Research Meeting focused on applying a racial equity lens to social care research and practice and offers plenty of progress to reenergize your work.

The recordings feature a visionary discussion between Rhea Boyd, Osagie Obasogie, and Darion Wallace on what social care can learn from abolition work in other sectors; a candid conversation between Monica Peek and Crystal Cene on how much (or little) racial health equity has been explored in social care intervention research; and a closing plenary featuring Lisa Hamlett, Mike McNear, Ann Reynoso, and Stephanie Walker with takeaways from the meeting and opportunities for more research and action.

Health care providers in rural areas and areas encountering shortages of primary care clinicians now have a new way to fill the gaps in staffing. California’s Assembly Bill 890, which was passed in September 2020 and will take effect in 2023, allows nurse practitioners (NPs) who meet certain criteria the authority to practice without physician supervision. California has just released rules on how the new law will be implemented.

AB 890 presents opportunities to increase access to health care for Californians, especially those served in the safety net and those who live in rural and underserved areas. Learn how policymakers, health plans, NPs, communities, and leaders in safety-net settings can support NP practice in the wake of the passage of AB 890 in a new issue brief from the California Health Care Foundation.