The Road to Improvement: Assessing Your Practice

• Why understanding your business strategy is important?
• How business concerns can support efforts to improve services and service delivery?

Utilizing the "Care Model" as a framework, each question will be answered from the perspective of how improvements in care can improve an organization's bottom line.  Examples of both specialty and primary HIV care providers will be woven into the discussion.  Participants will be invited to consider the following strategy to evaluate and improve their business practices:

• Practice Assessment
• Gap Analysis
• Prioritization and Action Planning
• Methodologies for Change

Learning Objectives:  At the conclusion of this seminar, participants will be able to:

• Explain the rationale for creating a business strategy,
• Understand the logic behind HRSA's Finance and Redesign Pilot Collaborative,
• Describe flaws in their business strategy from the perspective of the "Care Model" and how the "Care Model" can be applied to care for those living with HIV/AIDS,
• Discuss creating a business strategy based-off the "Care Model",
• List eight high leverage changes to improve their business strategy,
• Identify examples of how these changes can been applied in practice.

Making the Case for Business

Overview: The first step in understanding how new programs may impact an organization's bottom line is to have a clear-eyed understanding of the organization. This webinar explains one method organizations can use to better understand what is really going on with their businesses.  By looking at important information, such as:

• Patient characteristics - Examining payer mix, diagnosis distribution, patient demographics
• Clinical process and outcomes -- Measuring patient access to service (such as wait time)
• Cost, revenue, and profitability - Knowing the overall numbers as well as breaking down information by type of patient/service.
• Patient and staff satisfaction - Calculating "quality"
• Efficiency -- Determining visit cycle time.

In short, organizations need to understand where they are and where they compare to their internal benchmarks and goals.  This honest understanding allows organizations to better develop priorities. The integration of HIV services can be viewed systematically within the context of this entire practice.

Learning Objectives:  At the conclusion of this course, participants will be able to:

• Recognize the importance of measurements in creating a business strategy
• Describe the "5 P's" of practice assessment
• Discuss ways to interpret data and patterns
• Outline an action plan based on information from a practice assessment

Lean Thinking Concepts: Where Do We Find The Time and Resources?

Overview:  This webinar introduces and explains the concept of "LEAN" management, first developed by Toyota Production System, to streamline flow, manage inventories, and minimize unnecessary motion of people, information and technology in order to recapture significant waste that occurs from the design of our existing care delivery systems.  This training explains how these same concepts can be applied to healthcare by providing case studies of how these principles have been used by successful teams.  Applications to HIV care provision are incorporated throughout.

Learning Objectives:  At the conclusion of this webinar, participants will be able to:

• Describe "LEAN" as a concept for improvement
• Define the 7 forms of waste
• Use "Process Mapping" as a tool for identifying waste
• Apply "LEAN" Principles to their organization.

Optimizing the Care Team

Overview:  Labor typically represents more than 60% of a health care organization's expenses.  How staff is utilized can therefore drive much of the economics of an organization.  This training looks at ways an organization can match skill sets with the work at hand.  By thoughtfully and efficiently managing staff duties, organizations can maximize productivity, support more active patient panels, and increase revenue.  These concepts are particularly important when managing patients that have the potential to utilize significant healthcare resources, such as those living with HIV/AIDS. 

Learning Objectives:  At the conclusion of this training, participants will be able to:

• Understand the connection between team roles and productivity in an ambulatory practice,
• Begin reevaluating staff roles and experimenting with changes to the care system,
• Discuss opportunities to improve care for patients living with HIV/AIDS by optimizing the care team, and
• Identify tools and resources to assist with the evaluation of team productivity.

Improving Access: The Importance of Patient Panels

Learning Objectives:  At the conclusion of this webinar, participants will be able to:

• Understand and evaluate the role "Advanced Access" can play in an organization,
• Discuss the relationship between patient panels and access to care,
• Describe the issues to consider when evaluating and managing patient panels, and
• Find additional resources to support the evaluation and management of patient panels.

Leadership's Role in Promoting "Quality" as a Business Strategy

Overview: This webinar examines the role an organization's leadership plays in driving quality improvement and improving overall service.  This includes a discussion of how to effectively manage projects based upon qualitative measurements, action planning approaches and tools, establishing accountability and measurement milestones, improving service quality, and using service quality as a business strategy.

Learning Objectives:  At the conclusion of this web-based training, participants will be able to:

• Articulate the concept of "quality" as a business strategy,
• Describe the role leadership plays in supporting quality improvement and promoting quality as a business objective,
• Understand how quality improvement efforts align with the overall business strategy, and
• Implement tools and techniques to make quality improvement part of an overall business strategy.

Eligibility Determination for Ryan White Primary Care Providers

Overview:  Specifically designed for members of the Ryan White Community, this webinar is a comprehensive overview of issues related to determining the eligibility of patients applying to Ryan White programs.

Learning Objectives:  At the conclusion of this course, participants will be able to:

• Understand federal requirements regarding Ryan White eligibility determination, fiscal requirements, benefits coordination, and chart documentation.
• Identify federal and state disability income and health insurance programs most likely to benefit HIV positive clients.
• Explain eligibility determination practices, policies, and procedures used by members of the Ryan White community that can be adopted by organizations.
• Recognize the roles that staff and community partners can play in Ryan White eligibility determination.

 
The Relationship Between STIs & HIV: The Need for HIV Testing

Overview:  This CME/CNE activity is designed for physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, registered nurses, and other healthcare providers caring for or treating women who are living with HIV disease and emphasizes the impact HIV is having on women of color living in the United States.  This presentation includes a discussion of interventions which may assist women with HIV, or at risk for HIV infection, to remain in care and participate in her own self care.

Learning Objectives:

• Illustrate the rationale for standardized risk assessments with all patients and referrals for testing.
• Select a minimum of three risk factors that increase female susceptibility to STIs and HIV.
• Assess symptoms, diagnose and determine treatment options for females at risk for Chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis.
• Summarize the 2006 CDC recommendations for routine HIV testing and how they differ from previous HIV testing recommendations.
• Distinguish the difference between conventional vs. rapid HIV testing.
• Identify a minimum of three barriers to HIV testing from each of the following perspectives; client, system, and provider.

Overview:  This CME/CNE activity is designed to emphasize the impact that the HIV/AIDS epidemic is having on women of color living in the United States. This presentation will include a discussion of current recommendations for gynecological care with particular attention to several common gynecological problems seen in women living with HIV disease.  It will also provide a discussion of contraception and compare available options.

Learning Objectives:  At the conclusion of this activity, participants should be able to:

• List and discuss two gynecologic conditions of special significance in women living with HIV disease.
• Summarize current recommendations for gynecologic care for women living with HIV disease.
• Compare and contrast a minimum of three modes of contraception and describe the pros and cons for each method.

Medical Case Management: Connecting Clients to Care

Overview: This online case study considers the importance of medical case management in caring for the health of clients living with HIV

Learning Objectives: Goals of this activity include:

• Increasing primary care provider's awareness of the importance of case management for people living with HIV,
• Understanding the challenges people living with HIV face in remaining adherent to treatment,
• Providing an understanding of medical case management; and
• Explaining the critical skills required for successful case management in primary health care settings.

The Diagnosis and Clinical Management of HIV

Overview: This online case study examines recommendations and guidelines for HIV testing and clinical management.

Learning Objectives: Goals of this activity include:

• Educating health care professionals on the most recent CDC recommendations for opt-out HIV testing,
• Improving understanding of when to use FDA approved rapid and confirmatory tests, and
• Familiarizing professionals with the management and monitoring recommendations from the recently released "Primary Care Guidelines for the Management of Persons Infected with Human Immunodeficiency Virus: 2009 Update by the HIV Medicine Association of the Infectious Diseases Society of America."

Cultural Competency in Healthcare

Overview:   This webinar examines the role an organization's leadership plays in addressing:

• Title VI, and other Federal regulations targeting health care providers,
• Health literacy,
• HIV stigma,
• Differences between "medical interpretation" and "medical translation,"
• Cultural competency,
• Barriers to care.

Learning Objectives:  At the conclusion of this training participants will be able to:

• Identify best practices to improve quality of services and decrease health disparities, and
• Better understand the role culture plays in health care delivery.

A Systems Approach to HIV Care

Overview:  This course will provide SNHC by EPMC participants with an opportunity to increase their knowledge of system gaps that delay HIV primary care implementation.

Learning Objectives:  At the conclusion of this training, participants will be able to discuss how multiple factors influence patient adherence from four different perspectives [Physicians, Nurses, Social Workers, and Administrators].

Recruitment and Retention of Young Adults and Adolescents Into Care

Overview:  This training is designed for primary care providers wanting to increase their capacity to respond to the needs of young adults and adolescents living with HIV.

Employing HIV Positive Staff

Learning Objectives:  At the conclusion of this course, participants will be able to:

• Identify federal laws that protect individuals from discrimination based on disability,
• Understand laws that require employers to make reasonable accommodations.
• Develop sound human resource policies and procedures for employing HIV positive individuals.

Information Technology (IT) Security and Electronic Medical Record Systems

Overview:   This webinar examines Information Technology (IT) Security and Electronic Medical Record (EMR) Systems and explains the security measures that must be taken when handling Electronic Patient Health Information under the HIPAA Security Rule.

Learning Objectives:  At the conclusion of this training participants will be able to:

• Work through processes needed to implement EMR systems, or improve security around existing EMR systems, as organizations begin implementing HIV capacity building.
• Identify best practices and strategies that can be adopted by organizations to protect confidential information (e.g., HIV test results) from unauthorized access both inside, and outside, organizations.