HomeMy WebLinkAboutchr-newsletter-september-2020-archiveCommunity Health Record (CHR) User Newsletter
September 2020
Dear CHR Users, Super Users, and Supervisors,
Welcome to our September CHR User newsletter! Each month we bring you updates on
improvements and enhancements to increase the Community Health Record’s (CHR’s)
usefulness to your work and benefits to consumer care.
Topics include:
Organizations with the most CHR users trained
The value the CHR brings to whole person care
New features / enhancements and other updates
Answers to frequently asked questions
Upcoming enhancements
Opportunities to develop your skills; and
CHR usage stats
If you are new to our mailing list and didn’t receive the August issue, you can find h ere.
We hope you find these updates helpful to your work and we appreciate your readership.
Top Three Organizations
As of September 8, the organizations with the most CHR users trained were:
Bay Area Community Services: 107
Alameda County Behavioral Health: 108
LifeLong Medical Care: 60
Impact: How the CHR is used to support whole person care
We love hearing your stories of how you or other providers in your organization have used
the Community Health Record (CHR) as a tool for coordinating care and improving health
outcomes. This month’s story was shared by Sun Hyung Lee, LCSW, MPH; Interim Transition
Age Youth Division Director, Alameda County Behavioral Health.
“One of the Transition Age Youth providers who did not yet have CHR access had a client
who had been missing for the past week. His mom had placed a missing person’s report and
the provider had checked to see if the client had shown up at John George Psychiatric
Hospital or a local hospital. The provider also checked the inmate locator to see if the client
had been in jail. I was able to log on to the CHR and found that the client had emergency
visits at two hospitals outside of Alameda County in the past week. Since these were
emergency visits, this data was not available in our mental health records. While this
information did not necessarily aid in the client’s return, it was comforting for all of us to
know the client had recently received services at these facilities. Luckily, he returned home in
the next couple of days.”
To share your story, contact the Helpdesk at CareConnectHelp@acgov.org or
(510) 618-1997
Click here to learn more about whole person care.
What's New?
Highlights of recent activities, changes, and enhancements to the CHR include:
Outpatient data is now flowing into the CHR. This includes expanded hospital outpatient
(OP) data as well as clinic data (e.g., from the Community Health Center Network). The data
is for service dates from 9/4/20 going forward and includes date and location of service and
associated diagnosis codes (if available). Similar to ED and inpatient visits, the OP data can
be found in the Encounters section of the CHR. Reports are being developed and will be
available under the Analytics section.
Update on Santa Rita jail census data. As mentioned in the August newsletter, we are now
receiving limited publicly-available jail census data—information on jail stays and releases
only. The information is viewable in the CHR’s Analytics feature. CHR users are able to see
the information for consumers who are attributed to their organization. This data can
facilitate finding consumers who are lost-to-care and support better coordination of care
for both consumers who are incarcerated and those who are being released from jail. Over
the past month, we’ve been working to match the jail census data with records from other
sources in the Social Health Information Exchange (SHIE). Matching is still in process and
will be completed soon. We expect this to result in 50% of those in the Santa Rita jail data
feed (about 1,000 consumers) confidently matched in the CHR.
Change to deactivation timeframe for CHR user accounts: now 90 days. The time frame
for deactivation of CHR user accounts has been changed from 180 to 90 days. If it’s been
more than 90 days since you logged in you will receive a deactivation message when you
attempt to log in. Please contact the Helpdesk to be reactivated: (510) 618-1997 or
CareConnectHelp@acgov.org.
CHR User survey results are in! Thank you to all who completed our recent survey about
Helpdesk services, CHR use with care coordination, and CHR users’ knowledge and impact
move utilization. A final open-ended question asked for comments/feedback about the
CHR.
Highlights include:
102 people participated (16% of the 651 in the mailing list)
30% used the Helpdesk in the past three months; overall they were satisfied with the
service they received
Three-fourths (74%) used the CHR; most found it useful in Care Coordination and
somewhat helpful in their COVID-19 response efforts
Respondents expressed a desire for more data sources in the CHR and to have more
people using the CHR
Respondents felt that the trainings are well executed, but noted that they cover a lot
of information
Several expressed a desire for more refresher trainings
There is opportunity to improve and increase use of the Shared Care Plan
Next steps: We are discussing the findings with AC Care Connect’s management team and
will share our next steps soon.
Are you a Super User? Join us! Is someone from your organization attending the monthly
Super User Workgroup? Each program (at minimum, each organization) should have one
representative attending the Workgroup to ensure that your team is receiving key updates
related to the CHR (data feeds, new features, ISA updates, etc.). Held the first Tuesday of
each month, the Workgroup is also an opportunity to share feedback to help us improve
the CHR. Email Carla Justice at cjustice@pcgus.com for more info.
Thank you to the following organizations for their regular participation in the Workgroup:
Alameda Health System, Alameda Alliance for Health, Bay Area Community Services, Bonita
House, Alameda County Behavioral Health, Native American Health Center, and Family
Bridges
Tips & Tricks
We have many helpful resources to make the CHR easier to use and navigate. New
tip sheets and other resources are posted on Elemeno on an ongoing basis. (See also
Upcoming Trainings and Resources below.)
The Information Sharing Authorization (ISA): the key to comprehensive care
coordination. When a consumer has a signed ISA in the CHR, all CHR users who have
a validated treating provider relationship with the consumer are able to see
expanded information in the consumer’s CHR. This supports more comprehensive
care coordination. Consumers must sign the ISA by hand and all four pages must be
uploaded to the CHR. COVID-19 has made it difficult to collect ISAs since many
providers have switched to telephone and/or videoconference visits with their
consumers. There are two ways to obtain a signed ISA:
In person or mail: Consumers can sign the ISA and return the form in person
or by mail to you or your office to be uploaded to the CHR.
Email: Consumers can email a photo or scanned image of their signed ISA to
the AC Care Connect Helpdesk (CareConnectHelp@acgov.org). A staff person
will consolidate the four pages and upload the file to the CHR.
Find more ISA resources here.
Coordinating mental health treatment for clients who are in jail. Find a “how-to”
guide for mental health providers serving clients who are in jail here.
What's Next?
We continue to evolve and enhance the CHR. Here’s what we’re currently working on:
100 Day Challenge to Fight Homelessness ended on September 4 with 98 households
transitioned to permanent housing! Focused on developing viable housing plans for guests
of the COVID-19 hotels, this initiative housed an average of one household per day over the
100 day period. The CHR played a role in helping providers at the hotels identify housing
resources and connect guests to these.
100 & Beyond Collaborative launched. Building on the 100 Day Challenge, this four-month
collaborative is facilitated by AC Care Connect. It supports staff of Safer Ground hotels in
strengthening processes and building staff capacity to develop viable housing plans for
hotel guests. Participants will learn how to use the CHR as a tool to coordinate care across
organizations and hotel sites. The FEMA shelter reports, now in the Consumer Reports
section of the CHR, are a useful reference to locate consumers in the hotels. The kick-off
meeting earlier this month was well-attended and all were eager to share their successes
and lessons learned.
Participating organizations include:
Abode Services: one team each from the Oakland, Newark, and Livermore hotels
Berkeley Food and Housing: one team from the Berkeley hotel
Building Futures: one team
East Bay Innovations: one team serving multiple hotel sites
Five Keys: one team from the Oakland hotel
Housing Consortium of the East Bay: one team from the Oakland HomeBase site
A fact sheet with details on 100 & Beyond is found here.
Demand for CHR training continues to grow. In our trainings, or “Waves,” we train staff
from programs and organizations spanning a variety of sectors that are involved in
providing care to enrolled consumers.
Wave 4 launched in July and is coming to a close soon. Participating organizations
include Abode Services, Alameda County Behavioral Health, Alameda Health System,
Bay Area Community Health, Bay Area Community Services, Bonita House, Cherry
Hill, Health Care Services Agency Emergency Medical Services, and LifeLong Medical
plus staff of the isolation and quarantine hotels.
Wave 5 will span October through December. Participants will include Asian Health
Services, Building Futures’ hotel staff, Roots Community Clinic, and several substance
use disorder (SUD) and mental health partner organizations.
Wave 6 is still in the early planning stages and will launch in early 2021.
Upcoming Trainings and Resources
We offer many ways to learn about the CHR and get your questions answered
including:
Missed a training? Attend a CHR make-up training. This is for CHR users who have
never been trained and are staff of a program previously onboarded. After
completing the training, attendees receive their CHR username and password and
are able to access the CHR.
September 23, 1 - 4 pm: Register here.
October 29, 1 - 4 pm: Register here.
Already attended a training, but need a refresher? This training is for you! This two-
hour participatory session covers primary components of the data privacy
framework and includes a demo of key "impact moves" in the CHR. October 19, 1-3
pm:
Register here.
Need additional support? Elbow Support sessions are opportunities for one person
or small groups/teams of current CHR users to access additional support and
training. Click here to schedule a session.
New to the CHR? Click here to sign-up to onboard new programs to the CHR.
Missed a webinar? Recordings of past webinars are available here. Topics include
Review of Impact Moves; CHR Functions You May Not Know About; Information
Sharing Authorization (ISA); Housing Tab Review, Reports, and Q&A; Using the CHR
for Your COVID-19 Response; and our most recent webinar: Using the CHR for Care
Coordination: Focus on consumers at Santa Rita jail and at the FEMA COVID-19
hotels.
New to Elemeno? Elemeno is an online platform containing tip-sheets, guides,
videos, and other resources for the CHR and for services related to Care
Management, Health Plans, Housing, Mental Health, Primary Care, and Substance
Use Disorder Treatment. Use the self-registration feature by clicking “First time?
Create an Account” and entering your organization email here.
Data Corner
Recent highlights include:
642 persons (a 7% increase since the end of July) have now been trained as CHR
users and have CHR user accounts.
In August a total of 35 new CHR users were trained.
Trainings have been conducted for CHR users in a total of 25
organizations/programs.
Questions?
Contact the AC Care Connect Help Desk at:
CareConnectHelp@acgov.org or (510) 618-1997
AC Care Connect Steering Committee Members
Aaron Chapman, Alameda County Behavioral Health Care Services | Kathleen Clanon, M.D., Alameda County Care Connect | Scott Coffin,
Alameda Alliance for Health | Lori Cox, Alameda County Social Services Agency | Elaine de Coligny, Everyone Home | Delvecchio Finley,
Alameda Health System | Colleen Chawla, Health Care Services Agency | Beau Hennemann, Anthem | John Jones III, East Oakland Black
Cultural Zone and Just Cities | Karl Sporer, M.D., Alameda County Emergency Medical Services | Wendy Peterson, Senior Services
Coalition | Ralph Silber, Alameda Health Consortium | Wendy Still, Alameda County Probation | Suzanne Warner, Housing and
Community Development
www.accareconnect.org