Posted by admin on August 24, 2010 under News | 
Taking Steps to Help South Carolina’s Uninsured Now
The Duke Endowment Selects Three AccessHealth SC Community Networks to Receive $750,000 Grants to build Care Networks for the Uninsured
The Duke Endowment has awarded three South Carolina communities a multi-year grant of $750,000 each to implement their community’s plans to increase low income uninsured residents’ access to health care. The winning communities are: Lakelands Rural Health Network, including Abbeville, Edgefield, Greenwood, Laurens, McCormick, and Saluda; Kershaw County; and the Tri-County region of Berkeley, Charleston and Dorchester Counties.
AccessHealth SC, administered by the South Carolina Hospital Association with financial support from The Duke Endowment, works with statewide and local partners to create and sustain coordinated, data-driven community-based networks of care. The networks will provide medical homes and ensure timely, affordable, high quality healthcare services for low-income uninsured people in South Carolina.
System Orientation, the first phase of AccessHealth SC, is designed to establish a multi-faceted strategic plan addressing access for low income uninsured in the network. Each community underwent a review process before being selected as a System Orientation awardee. All awarded communities began the application process in 2009. AccessHealth SC has been working with all of the communities by providing technical assistance and facilitating the creation of a strategic plan.
Funds from The Duke Endowment will be distributed over a three-year period to implement the plans developed in Phase I of the AccessHealth SC process. In Phase II of the project, the newly formed networks will serve as a central location for the coordination of health care and the selection of medical homes for patients. The central network locations are designed to make navigating the health system easier for patients, close gaps in patient care and keep patients from getting lost in the shuffle. A key network focus will be on leveraging resources to present a unified front in treating the community’s population in need.
All community networks are expected to be operational in 2011.
Posted by admin on November 19, 2009 under News |
PRESS RELEASE
Governor Names Lakelands Rural Health Network to SC Health Information Exchange Committee
Columbia, SC
South Carolina Health Information Exchange, also known as SCHIEx operates as the Health Information Exchange for several projects throughout the state, including the Lakelands Rural Health Network – Lakelands Connect. The Health Information Exchange allows doctors in a six county region to electronically share a patient’s medical information or health facts between doctor’s office, hospitals and other health care providers. The secure Protected Health Information (PHI) contains electronic health information about a patient’s health care, such as; medications, diagnoses, x-rays results, laboratory results, and common problems. The patient’s health information can only be seen by doctors who participate in Lakelands Rural Health Network – Lakelands Connect. The system developed in the Lakelands Connect counties is one of the first in the state and one of the very few in the Southeast.
Lakelands Rural Health Network – Lakelands Connect covers a six county region in South Carolina: Abbeville, Edgefield, Greenwood, Laurens, McCormick, and Saluda. The Health Information Exchange allows doctors to gain access and make critical decisions that impact a patient’s treatment and patients will have the confidence knowing that their medical history follows them wherever they go.
On October 16, 2009, the Governor signed an Executive Order establishing the Interim Governance Committee for the South Carolina Health Information Exchange. This Committee will play an important role in laying the ground work for a successful Health Information Technology transition in South Carolina. The Governor has appointed Sue Veer, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Lakelands Rural Health Network and President and CEO of Carolina Healthcare Centers, to this committee along with the leaders of the SC Hospital Association, SC office of Rural Health, SC Medical Association, SC Primary Health Care Association, SC Pharmacy Association, SC Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Research and Statistics of the SC Budget and Control Board, SC Department of Health and Environmental Control, Health Sciences South Carolina, and a consumer representative.
The role of the Interim Governance Committee will be to recommend strategies and policies central to the successful implementation and sustainability of a statewide Health Information Exchange. The committee will advise and assist with the development of proposed enabling legislation to create a permanent governing body.
For additional information, please contact Dawn Wichmann, Executive Director of the Lakelands Rural Health Network, at 864 330-8221.
Posted by admin on June 15, 2009 under News |
AccessHealth SC Selects Lakelands as One of Three Communities to Receive Assistance in Developing a Care Network for the Uninsured
COLUMBIA, S.C., June 15, 2009 — The seven-county Lakelands region’s adult uninsured citizens are one step closer to having an option other than local emergency rooms for much needed preventive and acute healthcare services.
AccessHealth SC, a program that seeks to improve access to healthcare services for South Carolina’s low-income uninsured population, has announced the selection of three communities that will receive technical assistance and support to establish local, coordinated networks of care for the low-income uninsured. The winning communities are: the Lakelands Region, Kershaw County and Spartanburg County.
Fifteen communities from across the state applied for the AccessHealth SC program. To be selected, the applicants underwent a stringent review process with four requirements. First, they must have the commitment of specific healthcare providers required for a community network: hospital(s), Free Medical Clinics, Community Health Centers/Federally Qualified Health Centers, Rural Health Clinics, local health department, local behavioral health agency, physicians, and medication provider(s). Applicants also had to demonstrate they have strong leadership, trust between community partners and the time and ability to focus on developing a local network of care.
The winning Lakelands partnership is led by the Lakelands Rural Health Network and includes hospitals Abbeville Area Medical Center, Edgefield County Hospital, Laurens County Healthcare System and Self Regional Healthcare; Carolina Healthcare Centers, DHEC Region I, The Self Family Foundation, Montgomery Center for Family Medicine, rural health clinics Due West Family Medicine, Laurens Family Practice, Piedmont Pediatrics and W. High Morgan, MD; Beckman Center for Mental Health Services; medication providers Welvista and Carolina Community Pharmacy; and 11 private physician practices and a rehabilitation center.
Commenting on the selection, Dawn Wichmann, executive director, Lakelands Rural Health Network, said “We are very pleased to have been selected by AccessHealth SC to begin the process of developing a community care network that will be better able to help fellow citizens who have no health insurance and limited income. As healthcare providers, we are committed to meeting the needs of everyone in our community. However, limited resources can make this a challenge. Working with AccessHealth SC, we plan to develop a system that can provide the continuum of healthcare services people need regardless of job status or income level, from preventive care to managing chronic diseases like diabetes to acute care to medications, in a coordinated, efficient manner. Our goal is to make it easier for people who need help to get help.”
The Lakelands AccessHealth SC partnership will now begin Phase 1 System Orientation, a 12-month process that includes the development of a strategic plan. The planning process is critical to establishing an effective network as it will assess the number of uninsured adults, the diseases most prevalent in the community, barriers to care, and processes to overcome these barriers. On the successful completion of Phase 1, the Lakelands Rural Health Network will implement the strategic plan.
AccessHealth SC will be accepting applications from communities for the next round of support. The application will be available on or before August 1 at www.accesshealthsc.net.
About AccessHealth SC Administered by the South Carolina Hospital Association with financial support from The Duke Endowment, AccessHealth SC works to create and sustain coordinated, data-driven community-based networks of care that provide medical homes and ensure timely, affordable, high quality healthcare services for low-income uninsured people in South Carolina. For information, visit www.accesshealthsc.net.
Posted by admin on June 29, 2008 under News |
NC/SC JUN 2008
By Anna Marquez Cook
CCME Creative Services Coordinator
Nine primary care practices from South Carolina’s Lakelands Rural Health Network recently completed a special CCME-led collaborative to effectively use patient data to improve quality care. Two groups of primary care providers from Lakelands Rural Health Network in Greenwood, SC, have taken part in a unique, nine-month collaborative that examined medical records to improve cardiovascular health for diabetes patients. What set this project apart from similar initiatives was the fact that all nine practices independently collected, managed, and reported clinical measures data for analysis using their respective electronic health records (EHRs). The project, entitled the South Carolina Bridging the Gap in Chronic Care Collaborative, focused on diabetes care measures for patients who had cardiovascular disease with a comorbidity of diabetes. It was sponsored by The Carolinas Center for Medical Excellence (CCME) and the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control, Division of Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention. The Lakelands Network is a nonprofit, multi-county, health network developed in 2004 to achieve efficiencies, expand access, and improve the quality of essential care services, while strengthening the rural health care system as a whole. “Primary care physicians were asked to participate in this project because they are the backbone of the health care system and can have a great impact on patient health status,” said Jennifer Anderson, MHSA, PMP, electronic health records consultant at CCME. “And in a rural care network, they are sometimes the sole provider of health care to the community. This collaborative was unique because we worked with rural primary care physicians who had already adopted EHRs. With new studies indicating EHR adoption rates of 17 percent, it is extraordinary to have a collaborative in the rural health setting where all of the practices have EHRs and can generate quality measure reports from their systems.” The project began in October 2007 and was completed this month. The practices have been closely guided by CCME during monthly conference calls, on-site visits, and multiple learning sessions. The collaborative sought to improve outcomes for the following clinical measures:
- Patients with blood pressure < 130/80.
- Patients with low density lipoprotein cholesterol < 100mg/dL.
- Patients with glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c) < 7.0 percent.
- Patients who had a foot exam in past year.
- Patients who had a diabetes eye exam in the past year.
- Patients who had a nephropathy assessment in the past year.
The American Diabetes Association reports that one out of every five health care dollars is spent caring for someone with diagnosed diabetes. Diabetes-related hospitalizations totaled 24.3 million days in 2007, an increase of 7.4 million days from 2002. The average cost for a hospital inpatient day due to diabetes is $1,853. The average cost is even higher, at $2,281 per inpatient day, for diabetes-related complications, including neurological, peripheral, vascular, cardiovascular, renal, metabolic, and ophthalmic complications.
“Our goal for the collaborative was to improve the systems within the primary care office to make sure diabetic patients are getting the care they need so the patient and the provider can prevent an unnecessary hospital stay,” Anderson said. “The practices participating in the collaborative were deeply committed to making the changes necessary to improve the health status of their patients.” Because of the short duration of the project, Anderson said it will be difficult to determine if each practice’s measures improved significantly. She is hoping CCME will be able to resume the collaborative this fall.
“The impact of the collaborative is far-reaching,” she said. “The patients of the practices have a greater likelihood of getting the services that they need for their diabetic care. They are more likely to have foot exams, eye exams, and A1c tests because the practices have closely monitored their data during these last few months. The practices participating in the collaborative have learned how to improve the quality of care they provide and, because they have an EHR, they will be able to measure their improvement.”
For more information, contact Jennifer Anderson, MHSA, PMP, at 800-682-2650, ext. 2004.
Posted by admin on October 23, 2007 under News |
By: GoLaurens.com
Updated: October 23, 2007 11:20 PM
The Lakelands Rural Health Network will receive a much anticipated check from the South Carolina Office of Rural Health on Wednesday, October 24th at 5 PM. Dr. Graham Adams, Executive Director of the SC Office of Rural Health, will present the Lakelands Rural Health Network with a check totaling over $1.5 million from Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) within the US Department of Health and Human Services. HRSA is dedicated to supporting comprehensive and quality health care systems throughout the United States.
The Lakelands Rural Health Network partner organizations include Abbeville Area Medical Center, Edgefield County Hospital, Carolina Health Centers, Inc., DHEC Region 1, Laurens County Health Care System, Montgomery Center for Family Medicine, Self Regional Healthcare, The Self Family Foundation, and the South Carolina Office of Rural Health. The grant provides the necessary funding and technical resources for the Lakelands Rural Health Network, and its partners, South Carolina Office of Research and Statistics (ORS) and CareEvolution, to expand a regional health information exchange and quality improvement initiative in the rural Lakelands area of South Carolina, covering six counties and over 2400 square miles.
The Network’s two critical access hospitals, Abbeville Area Medical Center and Edgefield County Hospital, will each receive designated grant funds for technology infrastructure. The project promises to improve the quality, safety, and efficiency of health care in the Lakelands service area through health information sharing. It will have compelling impact in the areas of quality and continuity of patient care, clinical workflow and productivity, interoperability, efficiency and consumer healthcare.
Mr. Rich D’Alberto, CEO of Laurens County Health Care System and Chair of the Lakelands Rural Health Network Board of Trustees commented “the progress made by the Lakelands Rural Health Network has been impressive, as a direct result of the positive impacts made when healthcare providers partner for the same reason. These grant funds will assist the Network to achieve goals that expand health care quality, accessibility and affordability for our citizens”.
About Lakelands Rural Health Network (LRHN) LRHN is a nonprofit, multi-county health network developed in 2004, to achieve efficiencies, expand access, coordinate and improve the quality of essential health care services, and strengthen the rural health care system as a whole.
About South Carolina Office of Rural Health (SCORH) The South Carolina Office of Rural Health (SCORH), a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, was established in 1991 to improve the health status of rural and underserved people throughout the state.
