Coordinated health network
Over the past three years, the Montgomery Area Community Wellness Coalition has formalized, through their decisions and actions, the Coordinated Health Network, made up of the Coalition Board of Directors' provider agencies and other community partners. When the Coalition incorporated in 2002, the choice was made to create a small, health provider organizational model (rather than a large broad-base community association model) based on the belief that results can be achieved more quickly with decisionmakers from health provider agencies along the care continuum.
The Coalition takes the speed of decision-making, the strength of shared resources, and the force of consensus coupled with the governance efficiency of a small-sized board of directors, and strengthens it by using community members from disproportionately affected groups and environments to help identify problems and appropriate strategies to coordinate services and respond to the needs of those at risk. Fiduciary and policy decisions under this Coalition are the responsibility of the Executive Committee and the Coalition Board of Directors and are carried out by the Executive Director and staff, Contractors, and the Board of Directors' organizations.
A key strategy of the Montgomery Area Community Wellness Coalition is to maintain the Coordinated Health Network to share information and coordinate services to increase quality, efficiency and effectiveness within the system. One important means to increase efficiency within the Coordinated Health Network is by maintaining the Mid Alabama Information Network (MAIN). MAIN is designed to link primary care medical clinics with hospitals and wellness advocate. Automation of the information workflow processes for patient information is intended to assist clinics by expediting the receipt of lab results, progress notes and hospital documents. With patient information filed in a HL7 compliant format, by patient, by document type, by wellness advocate, by diagnosis, or by date of visit and made available across the entire network via the browser; hundreds of person-hours are saved. Patient information stored in an HL7 compliant format provides an opportunity to export patient information into the client record, thus providing clinics with additional return on investment.
MAIN use is intended to increase provider efficiency by reducing duplicate data entry, and increase the ability to appoint and follow-up patients going from the emergency room into a primary care medical home. MAIN connects patient information from diverse providers in a HIPAA-compliant secure environment; a strategy that improves service delivery by avoiding duplication, improving clinical outcomes, and integrating the mental health client more closely with primary care services. Other efficiencies are created because MAIN provides routine evaluation reports of disease parameters and population improvement measures; counts and costs of tests, ED visits, and hospital admissions; and continuous quality improvement feedback from a wellness case management case closure process that includes client/provider satisfaction. And finally, the Coalition assumed that increasing MAIN use would add to its' value and sustainability.
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