Twice a year, OneCare convenes representatives from each of Vermont’s health service areas (HSAs) to review strengths and areas of opportunity for improving the health of the population in each HSA. These meetings not only aim to share information on how OneCare participating health care organizations are performing in terms of health care quality metrics and associated payment reform programs, but new this year two HSAs were paired in each convening to encourage shared learning and collaboration. Here are some highlights from the fall 2024 HSA Consultations:
Regional Clinical Representatives (RCRs)
This year we included the perspectives of regional clinical representatives (RCRs) for each HSA. RCRs have been working closely with OneCare in 2024 as physician champions for OneCare’s Population Health Model (PHM) which aims to improve on a set of specific quality measures that best meet the health needs of Vermonters. Each RCR is supported by a member of our OneCare team, utilizing our data and analytics to identify practices who are doing well on select measures and those needing improvement.
Measure Spotlight: Follow-Up After Emergency Department Visit for Patients with Multiple Chronic Conditions (FMC)
This year, the RCRs focused on improving the Follow Up after Emergency Department (ED) Visits for Patients with Multiple Chronic Conditions (FMC) measure (emergency department follow-up within 7 days) since it is a measure with challenges to success. HSAs are employing a variety of techniques to tackle these challenges and prevent patients from falling through the cracks.
- HSAs are increasing appointment availability by:
- Maintaining open slots on providers’ calendars for patients who recently visited the ED.
- Improving access by hiring staff to schedule appointments and follow-up with patients.
- Improving collaboration with OneCare, the ED, and other HSAs to improve documentation and coding so practices are notified when their patient have been to the ED.
Further Areas of Success and Opportunity
In addition to the FMC measure, the HSA presentations also provide an overview of how practices are doing on their other measures. While successes and opportunities for improvement vary across practices, there are a few common threads:
- Across the board, many practices are doing well in child and adolescent well visits.
- There has also been significant improvement in the initiation and engagement of substance use disorder metrics.
- Hypertension control continues to be an area of opportunity. The struggle to meet this metric has led OneCare to convene a workgroup made up of organizations throughout the state to tackle this measure to improve reporting and patient compliance. Factors including inconsistencies with data lead to this being a challenging measure to improve upon.
The HSA consultation concluded with an overview of the waivers funding project . OneCare has given out over $300,000 in 2024 to organizations in the OneCare network impacting over 1000 Vermonters with shorter hospital stays and improved preventive care.
Overall, the HSA presentations continue to be a place where providers around the state can convene and learn from one another to improve the quality of healthcare for all Vermonters.
For more information
Please contact Public Affairs at OneCare Vermont. public@onecarevt.org | 802-847-1346
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