Content by Keyword: Community Health Centers and Hospitals

NORC at the University of Chicago (NORC) is pleased to present this report detailing findings from our recent site visit to Virginia for “Community Health Center Information Systems Assessment: Issues and Opportunities.” NORC conducted this site visit under contract with the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE)

Information provided by SKYCAP suggest that the case management portion of the initiative has substantially helped low income or uninsured residents navigate health and social safety net services available in the four county service area. The findings from this case study suggest that the use of lay health workers accessing a community-wide tracki

As described above, provider use of SKYCAP varies substantially. Interviews with various providers highlighted specific issues and concerns with respect to tracking clients under SKYCAP, relating both to the general user-friendliness of the system and to specific functionalities of the database and tracking application. In this section we describe

As with other community provider networking activities, the success of SKYCAP depends largely on active participation from community-based providers. In addition to technical challenges related to provider participation, network organizers face the challenge of assisting local providers to incorporate use of their application into the daily routin

Most of the clinics we interviewed in the Southeastern Kentucky region did not have a robust technical infrastructure or support staff, although access to information technology resources and staff expertise varied significantly across the region.  Some of the region’s larger health centers and primary care clinics have a more sophisticated lev

As in other regions investigated as part of this study, safety net ambulatory health care providers in Southeastern Kentucky enjoy varying levels of access to health information technologies and applications. In this section we describe systems capacity at community health centers interviewed in Southeastern Kentucky. We also describe their experi

SKYCAP’s technical infrastructure is designed to accommodate challenges associated with supporting networked health care applications in a rural environment, including relative lack of reliable, high-speed data transfer capabilities and lack of IT resources and expertise on the part of health care providers. The following section describes basic

SKYCAP’s client tracking system supports a range of services that are available for use by different members of the community.  Its main function is as a data collection tool and community resources databank.  As discussed above, various levels of information are input by FHNs, providers and other SKYCAP staff in the community and are stored i

SKYCAP is not a single organization with a dedicated set of staff or resources. Key activities are governed and managed by staff from several community partners.  The University of Kentucky Center for Rural Health administers the project and provides key staff including a Program Director and Educational Coordinator.  In addition to leadership s

We begin by describing the environment from which SKYCAP emerged and key aspects of SKYCAP’s early history, including the impetus behind the development of the program, its organizational structure, and the core functions it now provides to the community.

As noted above, this case study sought to investigate state and local initiatives to improve use of information systems among ambulatory safety net providers.  Besides the Kentucky e-Health network, a program (currently in early development) to establish a statewide health information infrastructure, SKYCAP was the only such initiative in the Haz

The SKYCAP/Kentucky Case Study involved a series of initial e-mail and telephone contacts followed by telephone-based structured interviews with 14 key stakeholders in the Southeastern Kentucky safety net.  Stakeholders included senior leadership in SKYCAP, staff at the Kentucky Primary Care Association, and directors and IT staff at consolidated

One of the key challenges facing consortium activity in Southeastern Kentucky is the relative lack of federally sponsored consolidated health centers that serve this area.

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. MEPS: A New National Health Information Resource. AHRQ Publication No. 00-P050, May 2000. Available at  www.ahrq.gov/data/mepsinfo.htm . Last accessed 11/14/2001. American Hospital Association 1998. Financial Viability Measures for Hospitals and Health Systems. Report of the National Advisory Panel Me

In the following paragraphs we provide relevant context and describe the methods employed for the case study. We begin by describing relevant characteristics of the ambulatory care safety net in Kentucky with an emphasis on areas of Southeastern Kentucky serviced by SKYCAP. As with other regions investigated as part of this study, we used a variet

Absent a national database with uncompensated care data and other information needed to develop measures of financial risk, three areas of investigation could be pursued that would provide valuable information related to federal support for hospitals that provide a disproportionate share of care to poor patients.

Examining the relationship between the financial status of hospitals and the distribution of DSH payments was a complex task. Particular areas where data issues became potentially problematic included:

NORC at the University of Chicago (NORC) is pleased to present this report detailing findings from our recent case study looking at use of health information systems by rural ambulatory care safety net providers in and around Hazard, Kentucky. This case study is part of “Community Health Center Information Systems Assessment: Issues and Opportun

Neither the current DSH allocation policies nor the alternatives that we examined in the analysis target DSH payments in a way that is strongly correlated with net income. This is an issue that warrants further investigation and understanding. The different Medicare formulae and the Medicaid DSH program's flexibility may provide mechanisms to targ