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April 11, 2024

In this issue

• April Top 5
• Mailing Incentive Checks and Annual Meeting Reminder
• Supporting Your Practice: CI updates, population health outreach and more
• Additional Things to Know
• Epic Updates
• Leadership Announcement
• CME

Note: When accessing APP Pro links below, you may need to sign in again if you are not taken directly to the referenced page or information.

Physician Partners,



Thank you for staying engaged on important APP updates. View our April Top 5 slide for information on the following topics:

• Data exchange requirement
• TCM
• Quality update
• Condition Management Documentation update
• Utilization update

As always, thank you for your partnership

Don Calcagno, President, APP | SVP, Chief Population Health Officer, Advocate Health

Mailing Incentive Checks and Annual Meeting Reminder

We heard you – and are here to support you. To ensure your incentive check reaches you quickly and to save you time, incentive checks will be mailed by the end of the day on Friday, April 12.

Also, make sure to join your local leaders and colleagues for the latest updates and information to support our shared success in 2024 at your PHO’s virtual annual meeting. Mark your calendars using the links below.

Clinical Integration updates: View the latest clinical integration updates including submitting urology chart measure data, 2024 PCP and SCP registry measures available, patients are now scorable in HEDIS MY2023 measures and more.

Population health outreach: View the patient outreach being conducted on your behalf to support quality outcomes and close quality care gaps.

Operations update: View the latest operations update including an update on nebulizer use, Change Healthcare and more. 

New resource to support data exchange: As you and your practice decide upon and execute a data exchange solution using Epic or IMAT to comply with the previously shared CMS requirement, the new APP Data Exchange page on APP Pro contains resources and next steps to support you. Read more.

Review vendor open payments data: Before May 15, review “transfers of value” reported about you to CMS by drug and device manufacturers. Dispute inaccurate information before CMS makes the data publicly accessible on June 30. Register, review and dispute the reported data on the CMS Open Payments site. View tip sheet. 

Pharmacy & Therapeutics updates: Review the latest Pharmacy and Therapeutics ambulatory and regional committees’ decisions. View March summary.

Additional Things to Know

Measles update: With measles cases increasing locally and nationally and several exposures at a few of our sites, please be aware of the resources available. Learn more. 



Touchstone Award applications: The Touchstone Award program is an annual recognition of individual and team projects demonstrating best practices and achievements in safety, health outcomes and experience. Learn more and submit applications by May 20.

Be someone’s lifeline: Register today for an on-site blood drive. April and May dates are now posted. 



Advancing Research:

Can an inflammation-reducing drug also treat heart failure? | Owais Malick, MD & Adam Schuldt, MD

Two trials investigate drug-coated balloon angioplasty device | Jaafer Golzar, MD & Lewis Schwartz, MD

Successful Epic upgrade: We heard you – for our April 10 Epic upgrade, we reduced downtime from several hours to only 43 minutes! In response to your feedback, IT has been working to safely lower Epic upgrade downtimes over the last several years to keep you connected and reduce frustration.



New Enhancements in LiveWell coming April 16: Ongoing enhancements in LiveWell empower more patients to engage in their care. See the latest:

Self-registration coming to an ED near you: Patients can soon register themselves in the Emergency Department, saving our teams time and eliminating privacy concerns when providing personal information. After being triaged at the front desk, noncritical patients will receive an email, text message or push notification to complete the self-registration process to provide demographic and other information, similar to how they complete PreCheck-in using LiveWell in other care settings.

Choosing care options is now easier: We're simplifying how patients identify which care option is best for them in LiveWell through a new tool, Symptom Checker. Patients will engage in a short questionnaire based on their symptoms to determine whether they qualify for an e-visit, Quick Care Video Visit or another visit type better suited to their needs. Learn more. 

Epic Update: Ambulatory Epic Connect: Spring Epic upgrade education, paper EKG workflow and more.



Epic Update: Hospital edition: Spring Epic upgrade education, difficult airway storyboard icon replacing banner, new opioid BPA/changes to BPAs and more.

Leadership Announcement

James Weese, MD, Vice President, Cancer Service Line in the Midwest Region, will begin his well-deserved retirement on July 1 after 16 years with our organization. Please join us in thanking Dr. Weese for his many contributions throughout his over 50-year career in medicine.

Continuing Medical Education

Get Climate Smart: What is Advocate Health doing in sustainability?

Thursday, April 25, noon-1 p.m.

Discover the impact of climate change on our patients’ and communities’ health, what Advocate Health is doing and how your practice can help.

Workplace violence and the behavioral or cognitively delayed patient

Thursday, April 25, noon-12:30 p.m.

Examine your work rights in the health care setting, plus learn how to help this population with screening tools, cognitive and psychiatric diagnoses, and providing a safe structure.

Upcoming CME

Virtual unless specified otherwise

April 16: Scientific Grand Rounds: Lessons from two comparative effectiveness trials

April 25: MEDtalks: Value-based care at Advocate Health – Midwest

April 25: Get Climate Smart | What is Advocate Health doing in sustainability?

April 25: Workplace violence and the behavioral or cognitively delayed patient

April 26: MEDtalks: Interventional pulmonology from the hospital care perspective

May 1: Older Adults Timely Topics: Primary care psychiatry pearls

May 2: Scientific Grand Rounds: Choosing the right time and design for an implementation project

May 3: Advances in the Management of Solid Tumors in Children (virtual and in-person)

May 4: Milwaukee Heart Failure Symposium (virtual and in-person)

May 15: 9^th Annual South Region Primary Care Medicine Symposium (virtual and in-person)

May 23: Cardiology for Primary Care Providers Conference

June 21: 2^nd Annual Pediatric Sleep Disordered Breathing Symposium (virtual and in-person)