Contents:

 

OCTOBER 2011

 

 

orhpc loo

 

twitter logoFOLLOW US ON TWITTER!

 

 

MDH & ORHPC NEWS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HEALTH REFORM
Health care delivery system demonstration proposals are due to the Minnesota Department of Human Services by the revised and extended deadline of November 4.

Community Based Care Transition Program applications are being accepted for test models to improve care transitions of high risk Medicare beneficiaries.
  natl rural health day logo  

Lake Region Healthcare (Fergus Falls) is featured on the National Rural Health Day site! Learn how to add your story and discover more ways to Celebrate National Rural Health Day in your community.

A Critical Access Hospital in a federally designated Health Professional Shortage Area affiliated with an outpatient, ambulatory care clinic may be approved to participate in a three-year expansion pilot of the National Health Service Corps (NSHC) programs. Eligible providers must split their time between the approved CAH and clinic according to program requirements. Each CAH is limited to 10 total NHSC participants during the three-year pilot project. More information is online or contact Deb Jahnke at debra.jahnke@state.mn.us or 651-201-3845.

UPCOMING ORHPC MEETINGS
The Southern Minnesota Regional Trauma Advisory Committee is meeting October 6 in Owatonna.

The Rural Hospital Flexibility Committee is meeting October 20 in St. Paul.

HEALTH INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Need help assessing, planning, implementing, project managing or researching best practices for your health IT systems? Normandale Community College MN Health IT (MnHIT) students are earning certificates as Implementation Support Specialists, Health IT Trainers, Clinician/Practitioner Consultants and Workflow Redesign Specialists. The students already have six to eight years of health care experience and/or IT experience. To set up an internship with one of these students, contact Sunny Ainley, associate dean, at 952-358-8806 or sunny.ainley@normandale.edu.

HEALTH CARE WORKFORCE SNAPSHOT

specialists practicing primary care

Providing routine and preventative health care services is frequently considered the purview of physicians practicing primary care. Grouping physicians by certification in one or more of the specialty areas of medicine that include general practice, family practice, internal medicine, pediatrics and obstetrics and gynecology is one way of estimating the proportion of physicians most likely providing primary care in Minnesota. Physicians with at least one non-primary care specialty (43 percent) are probably less likely to be providing primary care. Certification in only primary care specialties suggests 37 percent of Minnesota’s providers are exclusively delivering primary care.

For more information and data on Minnesota's health workforce, visit the ORHPC Health Care Workforce Analysis Program site or contact Angie Sechler at angie.sechler@state.mn.us or 651-201-3862.
 

STAFF NEWS
Judy Bergh toured Lakes Region EMS, which is using a Flex grant to develop curriculum for interfacility ground transfers of medically complex patients.

Judy Bergh, Craig Baarson and Anne Schloegel visited Bigfork Valley, Cook Hospital, Deer River Health Care Center, Ely-Bloomenson Community Hospital and Scenic Rivers Health Services (Cook). They also met with PortageHealth, a third party administrator.

Jill Myers Kemper left ORHPC at the end of September to take a job with OptumHealth. We appreciate all of her contributions and we will miss her enthusiasm and leadership.

Mark Schoenbaum wrote Critical Access Hospitals: Hubs for Rural Health Care for Minnesota Medicine.

Congratulations, Mark, for receiving the 2011 Distinguished Service Award from the National Organization of State Offices of Rural Health!

top of page

ORHPC GRANTS AND LOANS

 

Community Clinic Grant pre-applications are due October 7.

Minnesota's Loan Forgiveness applications are due December 1.

Rural Hospital Capital Improvement Grant applications will be available October 10 and due December 16.

Be an ORHPC grant reviewer. Please contact Doug Benson at doug.benson@state.mn.us or 651-201-3842 or Cindy LaMere at cindy.lamere@state.mn.us or 651-201-3852 with your name, profession, place of employment and contact information.

 

top of page

OTHER GRANTS AND LOANS

Rural Health Care Services Outreach Grant Program (announcement HRSA-12-083) applications are due November 22.

Rural Health Network Development Planning Grant Program applications from state and local governments are due October 31.

Pilot studies using Community-Based Participatory Research to Reduce Cancer Health Disparities applications from researchers in the Midwest Division of the American Cancer Society are due October 15.

UnitedHealth HEROES Service Learning Grant applications to fight childhood obesity are due October 17 from nonprofits, service-learning coordinators, schools and health profession students.

 

top of page

OPPORTUNITIES

Openings in the Secretary of State's September press release include:
  • Advisory Committee on Heritable and Congenital Disorders
  • Governor's Task on Broadband
  • Autism Spectrum Disorder Taskforce
  • Health Insurance Exchange Advisory Taskforce
  • Newborn Hearing Screening Advisory Committee
  • Ombudsman Committee for Mental Health & Developmental Disabilities.

Special rural health issue of American Journal of Clinical Medicine papers are due October 15.

Country Doctor of the Year nominations are due October 15.

The Minnesota GO vision presents 50-year objectives to inform all transportation planning, construction and delivery investment and service decisions. Challenges and opportunities include the aging population, health care costs, and floods and water quality. Comment by October 21.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Fellowship applications are due November 9.

Presentations for the Dakota Conference on Rural and Public Health are due November 15.

The Compliance Team, Inc. is accepting applications from critical access hospitals to participate in the Accreditation Demonstration Project. Once completed, an application for deeming authority will be submitted to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

top of page

NEWS OF OUR PARTNERS

 

Michael Wilcox, M.D., responds to questions in: Paramedics filing health care gap as need grows.

In August, Chad Cooper was named chief executive officer of St. Gabriel's Hospital in Little Falls.

Mahnomen Health Center received a federal grant to support adoption of health information technology and certified electronic health records.

Glacial Ridge Health System and Northfield Hospital and Clinics completed the attestation to meaningful use process.

Carlton County received youth suicide prevention program funding.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is expanding its Virtual Lifetime Electronic Record pilot to include Minneapolis VA Health Care System and Minnesota hospitals through the Community Health Information Collaborative Health Information Exchange. The VA expansion will include veterans in Northeast Minnesota and Northwest Wisconsin.

The University of Minnesota-Rochester, which prepares students for careers in health sciences, is featured in Inventing a New Kind of College: Don't Lecture Me on American Radio Works.

Unity Family Healthcare staff and Morrison County health care and emergency services agencies received violence prevention training through Medicare Rural Hospital Flexibility Program funding.

Sanford Health and WebMD developed fit, to promote health and wellness and prevent obesity among 2- to18-year-olds.

Sen. Al Franken was named 2011 Legislator of the Year during the National Organization of State Offices of Rural Health’s annual conference.

Mississippi Headwaters Area Dental Health Center in Bemidji received an $80,000 Health Center Planning Grant Award from U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The Minnesota Rural Health Cooperative hired Denise Schneekloth as executive director.

Appleton Municipal Hospital, Clearwater Health Services (Bagley), Cook County North Shore Hospital (Grand Marais), Deer River HealthCare Center, Lakewood Health Center (Baudette), New River Medical Center (Monticello), Perham Memorial Hospital and Home, Rainy Lake Medical Center (International Falls), Redwood Area Hospital and River's Edge Hospital & Clinic (St. Peter) are participating in the Stratis Health led Rural Patient Safety Culture Project.

Bigfork Valley Hospital (Bigfork) and Riverwood Healthcare Center (Aitkin) are expanding with assistance from Iron Range Resources & Rehabilitation Board grants.

Sanford Health announced a Letter of Intent with Clearwater Health Services (CHS). CHS includes Memorial Hospital (Bagley) and the attached CHS clinic, the Clearwater Ambulance Service and the CHS clinic in Clearbrook.

Stratis Health is offering free help to clinics to improve cultural competence (PDF: 742KB/7pgs)

The Minnesota Community Healthcare Worker Alliance meets the first Wednesday of each month. Contact Joan Cleary at joanlcleary@gmail.com for more information.
  top of page

NOW READ THIS

 

  • Economic Impact Analysis Tool: How does your grant-funded project impact the local economy?
  • Medicare, Medicaid and rural America
  • An ounce of prevention worth a pound of cure in rural Minnesota

Hospitals
  • Medical training programs under pressure from budget cuts.
  • CAH Financial Indicators Report: Summary by State (PDF: 411KB/58pgs)
  • Trends in Skilled Nursing Facility and Swing Bed Use in Rural Areas Following the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003
  • Trends in the Provision of Surgery by Rural Hospitals (PDF: 313KB/4pgs)
  • Handling the Handoff: Rural and Race-Based Disparities in Post Hospitalization Follow-up Care Among Medicare Beneficiaries with Diabetes

Health Information Technology
  • ONC launches website offering health IT resources.
  • Increasing EHR Use for Quality Improvement in Community Health Centers: The Role of Networks (PDF: 1MB/14pgs)
  • Telehealth can be cost effective for rural stroke patients.
  • You’ve heard of distance learning, but what about distance caring?

Workforce
  • Community Health Workers Toolkit
 • Nearly half of office-based physicians work with NPs and PAs 
  • Investigation of the Developmental Course of the Burnout Among Rural Clinicians (PDF: 92KB/10pgs)
  • Nature and nurture in the family physician's choice of practice location
  • Minnesota is named one of the Action Coalitions by the Future of Nursing
  top of page

SAVE THE DATE

Community Paramedicine Insights Forum webinar is the third Monday of each month at 2 p.m.

The National Association of State EMS Officials is October 2-7 in Madison, Wisconsin.

Meaningful Use Boot Camp in Granite Falls is October 11 for clinics and October 12 for hospitals through the Regional Extension Assistance Center for HIT (REACH) .

Rural Economic & Wellness Regional Symposium is October 13. Contact Judy Neppel at 218-281-8323 or jneppel@umn.edu.

Accountable Care Organizations, Accountable to Whom? is a Minnesota Physician Publishing Health Care Roundtable October 13 in Minneapolis.

Meaningful Use Boot Camp in Grand Forks, North Dakota is October 25 for hospitals and October 26 for clinics through the Regional Extension Assistance Center for HIT (REACH) .

The Sixth Annual Many Faces of Community Health Conference is October 27-28 in Minneapolis.

The Ninth Annual American Indian Health Research Conference is October 28-29 in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Midwest Rural Agricultural Safety & Health Forum is November 16-17.

 

top of page

View online all previous issues of the Office of Rural Health and Primary Care publications.

We invite you to forward this newsletter to your colleagues. Not already a subscriber? Subscribe to receive the Minnesota Office of Rural Health and Primary Care free Monthly and Quarterly e-newsletters.

Minnesota Office of Rural Health and Primary Care
P. O. Box 64882
St. Paul, Minnesota 55164-0882
Phone 651-201-3838
Toll free in Minnesota 800-366-5424
Fax: 651-201-3830
TDD: 651-201-5797
http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/orhpc/index.html

Email Mary Ann Radigan at maryann.radigan@state.mn.us or call 651-201-3855 with comments.

Our mission
to promote access to quality health care for rural and underserved urban Minnesotans. From our unique position within state government, we work as partners with communities, providers, policymakers and other organizations. Together, we develop innovative approaches and tailor our tools and resources to the diverse populations we serve.