Hard to believe it has been a month since we hired 8 staff to support healthcare redesign across a community.  2 more individuals will join us this week and soon the final data analyst position will be filled.  During this past month, we have built a cohesive team both excited and overwhelmed by the task ahead.  Role clarification is an ongoing process.  This is to be expected as roles have not existed quite like this before and the human dynamic of change and transition does not elude even the most talented and gifted staff.  Passion about the vision of patient-centered has not waned.   Some milestones achieved in the month include: 

• Identification of referral criteria for patients who need the services of a clinical care specialist, forms and the process of service have been developed.  The first patients were referred last week!  We are already making a difference in the lives of patients. 
• Development of a communication/document management website to post all work/documentas and teams that will implement the vision of a healthcare system across organizations is complete .  This site will work in partnership with Radio.  Feedback is welcome.
•  Began the data analysis of each organization's costs and payment for diabetes services in anticipation of Systems Dynamics modeling to occur this week. This has attracted the attention of Medicare Region 10 and congressional representatives.  Opportunity to highlight this work because of the leadership of Mark Donaldson of Group Health Cooperative has resulted in an important meeting of the minds tomorrowl.
• Networking and the building of relationships with the pilot sites has begun.  Visits to Fernadale Family Medical Center and Center for Senior Health has introduced the project staff to clinic staff who everyday strive to make a positive difference in the lives of patients in Whatcom County.
• Presentations have been made to community groups, hospital staff and a bi-weekly article called the Pursuing Perfection Corner has been launched in the St. Joseph Staff newsletter
• A single medication list across the community is closer to reality due to the excellent work of a CHF Medication Team under the guidance of Carol Boston-Fleischauer.  This team with 3 patients as full participants, retail pharmacy, and home health joined clinicans from the pilot sites to identifiy significant barriers to safety.  They have made recommendations about first steps and implementation teams will begin the work of process improvement in this area.

.......and we have just begun!

 

 

Notes from Marc Pierson before you read this proposal by David Bohm and others:

This is proposal is kind of long and kind of technical and abstract. You may not like it or finish it. You may want to read at least the last section on dialogue in existing organizations.

Dialogue itself is simple (if you join a group with some experience), immediately rewarding, and profoundly eye opening. You can read about it and/or just do it. In either case if you want to join our dialogue group in Whatcom County--if you are in healthcare or you are a patient or you are in a patient's support system--contact Lori Nichols (LNichols@hinet.org) for dates and times. The meetings are usually every other Wednesday from 1-3 PM.

As we come to understand (admit?) that organizations are not very much like mechanical systems at all, how will we deal with the complex, adaptive nature of our organizations and create a better future? I think that a special kind of dialogue will be essential. Please read some of David Bohm's Proposal.

Mancilla. Now that we are beginning to have a directory structure, our structure needs some content or directions. ... Are there any specific topics we should pursue under the WWPP banner?

Our current directory is here ->Directory

Then we can build our structure based on our interests and our focus. ... They can include anything we are interested in because we can just add another heading to the topic tree.

For instance, I have started a WWPP weblogs source based on state. We can also have a WWPP weblogs source based on the realm of health care that the author is working in. ... Anything else?

Good weekend! You may, or may not have noticed a new sub-heading under the "Common Links" navigation area in the left-hand column of our site pages. ... If you do not see it in your pages yet, it is because those pages have not been "published" since I updated the "Common Links." In order to have that link added, just republish your weblog pages from the RadioUserland Program.

The intent for "Directories" is to create a logical way of finding our contributors as we get larger. It also gives us a very good way to organize our sources of information.

"Directories" is an outline that is housed on a single manila page. That makes it easy for us to have several people organize the outline.

I have received some great gems of web sites from Gwen Hosey, a former colleague, who has just been assigned to the CDC to do population education re: DM and other diseases. She's offered us assistance and links to others involved in similar efforts. Hopefully all of us can use the references, but especially Annie and the web folk.

The Kaiser site was provided by Peg McClure and is another goldmine of info for both pts and providers.

http://kpcmi.org/

www.ihs.gov/medicalprograms/diabetes This is a resource directory and clinical practice guidelines for DM

www.aadenet.org Order professional resource material; comprehensive curriculum. (Gwen thinks this is the best site for this type of info)

www.ada.org Curriculums for pt education; also professional resources.

http://ndep.nih.gov/ National Diabetic Education Program (sponsored by NIH & CDC) to get current scientific based concepts into family practice more rapidly.

?!!? Information overload?!