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The e-BLUES Beacon Community

is a three-year grant that was awarded to the Delta Health Alliance (DHA) in Spring 2010. From more than 200 applicants, DHA was one of only 17 organizations throughout the country that received one of these innovative grants from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The immediate goal is simple: make use of the latest in direct care practices and information technologies to improve health care in the Mississippi Delta. The long term goal is more profound: transform the health care system by redirecting more of the existing resources into patient care and out of administration and recordkeeping.

The programs financed by this federal grant, and managed by DHA, will work to achieve measurable improvements in health care quality, safety and efficiency, and also lay the groundwork for emerging health information technology industry. The BLUES Beacon Community is an alliance between Delta Health Alliance, other state and federal agencies, health care providers, and community health care programs.

Celebrating One Year of Delta Blues

The Delta BLUES (Better Living Utilizing Electronic Systems) Beacon Community Program recently celebrated the one-year anniversary for being selected as one of seventeen Beacon communities by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for Health Information Technology.

To mark the event for the Delta BLUES Beacon, the BLUES Beacon Steering Committee gathered for updates about the project and a reception attended by featured guest, Janhavi Kirtane, Senior Project Officer and Director of Clinical Transformation, from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. BLUES Beacon Community steering committee members in attendance for the celebration included: Craig P. Orgeron, PHD, Director of Strategic Services, MS Dept of Information Services; Tom Fenter, MD, Blue Cross Blue Shield; Ruth Rutland, -Chief Information Office, Medicaid; Charmaine Kanosky, Executive Director, MS State Medical Association; Harold Ingram, President, Performax, Mary Currier, MD, State Health Officer, MS Dept of Health; Ricky Boggan, JD, Special Assistant to the State Health Officer, MS Dept of Health; Laurie Robinson, Quality Improvement Director, eQHealth Solutions; Randy Bordelon, Project Director, eQHealth Solutions; and many other government and health care officials.

Featured guest and ONC Senior Project Officer and Director of Clinical Transformation Janhavi Kirtane and other collaborative partners share the importance of the BLUES Beacon Community efforts for the Mississippi Delta.

A national-level celebration was held on May 17 in Washington, D.C. through a collaborative update meeting with ONC and the Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform at Brookings. The anniversary provided an opportunity to highlight short-term progress made within each Beacon Community and to address future challenges, especially in sustainability of the program locally.
Delta Health Alliance was selected from hundreds of applicants to participate in the Beacon Community program and received $14.7 million in funding to improve diabetes care through a range of interventions designed to Improve access to care for diabetic patients through the meaningful use of electronic health records and health information exchange by primary care providers in the Mississippi Delta, and increase the efficiency of health care in the area by reducing excess health care costs for patients with diabetes through the use of electronic health record.

BLUES Beacon Partner Focus

Delta Health Alliance is fortunate to have several outstanding collaborative partners to help achieve the goals for the BLUES Beacon Community project. In the last edition of BLUES Beacon Spotlight, partnerships with Mississippi Medical Association and University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy were highlighted.

In this edition of Spotlight, we would like to introduce our partnership with eQHealth Solutions (Mississippi Regional Extension Center). eQHealth Solutions serves as the contracted facilitator for the Mississippi Regional Extension Center for the Office of the National Coordinator Health IT. Nationally recognized for their expertise in care transitions work, eQHealth’s best practice method is not currently being deployed in the Mississippi Delta. DHA has contracted eQHealth Solutions to train Delta residents as health coaches, ultimately improving health outcomes, infrastructure and economy in the Delta region. eQHealth will also help ensure that Delta physicians will achieve meaningful use through electronic health records (EHR) resulting in meeting federal guidelines and maximizing patient and provider satisfaction. Through this collaboration in care transitions, long-term sustainability in meaningful use of EHR will be achieved.

Each month, DHA will highlight our collaborative partners for the BLUES Beacon Community.

BEACON Staff making the rounds…