April Topics: Licensure supervision funding proposal, HCA & Comagine Performance Measure study
Agenda & Licensure Supervision proposed approach (same doc)
Tag: IMC
BHT Serving as Regional Hub for Care Connect Washington
DOH COVID Care Coordination
As Washington State continues to manage the COVID-19 outbreak, isolation and quarantine are critical tools to mitigate further transmission of the virus. Better Health Together (BHT) has contracted with the Department of Health (DOH) to serve as the Care Connect Washington hub for our region, collaborating with our regional health jurisdictions.
In this role, BHT facilitates support for Adams, Ferry, Lincoln, Pend Oreille, Spokane, and Stevens counties through the pandemic by providing community-based care coordination for individuals who need to quarantine.
The program, which launched on January 11, will help individuals and households overcome barriers and circumstances that make it difficult for them to complete isolation and quarantine successfully.
BHT has teamed up with several community-based Care Coordinating Agencies that employ Community Health Workers.
CHAS
Peer Spokane
SNAP
Spectrum
Frontier Behavioral Health
Rural Resources
YMCA
Northeast Tri County Health District
The Community Health Workers at each of these partner locations will provide direct support to individuals in quarantine. This support includes:
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delivering care kits (PPE)
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offering food kits (non-perishable food items for immediate food access)
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coordinating fresh food deliveries
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providing prescription delivery or coordination
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assisting individuals with accessing benefits such as unemployment, food, rental assistance, and energy assistance
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connecting individuals to longer-term support post quarantine
BHT’s Role
As the hub, BHT manages the referrals coming in from the State and assigns them to the network of Community Health Workers, using a centralized data collection system. Additionally, BHT manages the procurement of the tangible resources which the Community Health Works will distribute. BHT will also participate in and help with strategic coordination, monitoring, quality improvement, and evaluation.
BHT is thankful for our community partners’ quick action in helping us get this program off the ground and start delivering this much-needed support to our communities.
To learn more about this program, visit the Washington State Department of Health “Care Connect Washington” webpage.
Capacity Connect – Provider resources
Resources
Getting on Capacity Connect
To get your organization listing started, email zack@betterhealthtogether.org and include the following:
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Organization Name as you’d like it to appear
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First and Last name of contact(s)*
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Email address of contact(s)*
From there, BHT will get you set up & send next steps for creating your listing. The initial set-up will take about 10 minutes of your time. But after that, updating your current capacity is just a few clicks.
* Your organization may have more than one contact person with login information. Each contact will have access to update your organization listing & capacity.
Two important notes – updated Feb 2021
Note 1: Listing should be at the organization level (not the site level)
Note 2: Changes suggested at the December BH Forum have been made: WISe is now listed among services, and Insurance Accepted now checkboxes & filterable on the user end. Please update these items the next time you log on to update your capacity.
BH Forum resources – Oct 2020
BHT Invests in Broadband Feasibility Studies
At the September meeting, the BHT Board of Directors approved an allocation of up to $207,000 in funding from Integrated Managed Care (IMC) dollars to support the Washington State Broadband Office’s Feasibility and Grant Maximization Initiative.
Specifically, these funds will go toward 18 broadband grant applications: two projects in each of our counties (Spokane, Adams, Lincoln, Stevens, Ferry, and Pend Oreille) and two projects each for the Spokane Tribe of Indians Reservation, Kalispel Tribe of Indians Reservation, and Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation.
These IMC funds were set aside in 2019 for telehealth strategies, but COVID expedited that work for us. Since then, we have heard from our behavioral health partners that there are many positives to the telehealth appointments. However, patients lacking access to the internet remains a massive barrier to delivering services.
This Feasibility and Grant Maximization Initiative aims to maximize Federal Grant funding that flows into the State’s rural broadband communities. This will be done by funding the creation of grant applications that are highly targeted, produced with uniform quality, and managed by expertise familiar with the technical details of broadband networks and Federal grant applications.
This work will be accomplished through the joint forces of the Washington State Broadband Office, GEO Partners LLC (expert in network and financial modeling), and Learn Design Apply Inc (LDAI) (expert in grant consulting and proposal writing). This team’s work will give multiple communities a chance at obtaining needed Federal dollars for broadband deployments.
Background
Broadband access has been a long-recognized need in rural Washington. Washington Senate Bill 5511 was passed in 2019 and recognized Washington residents’ critical need to have broadband access and created the Washington State Broadband Office within the Commerce Department.
While commonly known, Washington State does not have sufficient data for demonstrating the lack of coverage. In July 2020, the Department of Commerce launched a statewide testing mechanism to provide real-time connectivity data. This work is a vital step in achieving the state’s goal to have universal broadband access in Washington by 2024.