HBHS Recognized
Health center achieves patient-centered milestone By Robin L. Flanigan – January 28, 2019 Three years ago, before the community health center His Branches partnered with Common Ground Health, this was a typical scenario: Moments into a patient’s visit, Medical Director Dr. Matthew Mack would realize he didn’t have the MRI results he needed. He’d then dart to the front of the office to find out where they were. A secretary would search for, and ultimately find, them—just in time for the patient’s visit to end. “There was zero foresight and the stress level was much higher,” he recalls. The center’s two locations, in the 19th Ward and Beechwood neighborhoods, experienced similar challenges. From left, Jenai Lawton, medical assistant, Regina Gonzalez, patient advocate, Dorcas N. Green, registered nurse, Sue Swift, quality improvement advisor with Common Ground Health, and Dr. Matthew Mack, M.D., meet in a huddle at His Branches medical center on Jan. 17, 2019. “It was planned chaos all day long and across the board,” says Sue Swift, who serves as a quality improvement advisor on Common Ground’s practice transformation team. She worked with staff at both locations on providing comprehensive care before, during and after patient visits. “It sounds simple,” Swift adds, “but it’s transformative for practices and for patients.” His Branches’ relationship with Swift as a consultant introduced critical strategies and skills to the safety net practice. As a result, the center reduced wait times, stretched follow-up visits from 15 to 20 minutes, improved patient outcomes, and implemented a host of other care enhancements. Those quality improvements recently helped His Branches earn renewal as a New York Patient-Centered Medical Home, recognition that the practice is using a holistic, patient-centered approach and is committed to continuous improvement. Research shows that practices using the medical home model benefit from lower health care costs, improved patient experience and better health outcomes. “Sue was firm and gentle, the perfect combination for a leader,” says Dr. Mack. “We’re a grassroots kind of place and there were times we felt overwhelmed and discombobulated with so many details, but she helped us stay grounded.” Using metrics to track its entire patient population, rather than only focusing on those who show up for appointments, the center has a much broader perspective and greater ability to close gaps in care. It can, for example, see which patients have not shown up for immunizations or lead screenings, or how many with hypertension and diabetes are overdue for a follow-up visit. Staff can then reach out to these individuals, helping to catch medical issues when they are easier and cheaper to treat. Jenai Lawton, medical assistant and Regina Gonzalez, patient advocate, talk about care they will provide during the day during a meeting at His Branches Medical Center. Common Ground Health assisted His Branches with putting in place team-based care. Perhaps the biggest impact has come from establishing care teams, each one comprised of a provider, a nurse, and a patient advocate. The teams meet 30 minutes before the first patient appointment to plan out the day with intention. These huddles ease tension for staff and for patients—the majority of whom are uninsured, qualify for Medicaid, or are otherwise vulnerable—especially when emergencies arise. The care teams also meet every two weeks to improve the way they work together. Staff members take turns leading the meetings to build leadership skills and rapport. “Communicating up front makes sense,” says Jennifer Wolford, RN, nurse manager. “We’re just more organized and have a better understanding of a patient’s needs before they come in the door.” Patients have picked up on the care...
Read MoreHappy New Year 2016!
We welcome you to join us in making 2016 an even better year for all of us in our personal health and in our relationships with our families, friends, neighbors, and co-workers, as well as in learning how to live meaningful lives of service to those around us! His Branches Health Services is looking forward to continued growth, and we’re counting on your support and prayer along the way as we: work more closely together as teams to meet your needs. grow our Patient Centered Medical Home and make it even more “home-like.” learn more about the advanced capabilities of our new Medent EMR system. expand our national certifications beyond Meaningful Use and PCMH to FQHC status. recruit another physician to join our staff who likes to deliver babies. understand more about applying living faith in all that we do. God bless you all! Source...
Read MoreHBHS Update
Thanks to your ongoing support we’re in a season of active growth and reorganization at His Branches Health Services to improve the quality of the family medical care we provide, and we’re excited about the future! With our Care Manager and new, more robust electronic medical records software we’re already learning more comprehensive ways to follow and provide preventative care for patients at risk for diabetes, hypertension and other threatening conditions. The old adage “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” really comes alive when you can clearly identify where that ounce of prevention is best applied! In addition, our close collaboration with Embracing Options and other pregnancy care centers in the area continues to offer us rich opportunities to provide medical and maternity care for many of their clients. In keeping with our commitment to serve the whole person – body, soul and spirit – we offer to close all of our patient encounters with prayer asking the Lord for wisdom, healing and help. We are so thankful for the privilege of co-laboring with a God who hears and answers when we call. Please pray for us as we learn better ways to connect with and love our neighbors as Christ would have us do in today’s complex world. Source...
Read MoreUpgrading to Medent
Get ready! After months of planning and extensive preparation, we’re on the verge of converting over from the Electronic Health Record (EHR) that we’ve been using for the past 10+ years to a more robust system called Medent. The decision to change was made last spring after months of prayer and research into our future needs for a more sophisticated system to handle the increasing patient care requirements of our Patient Centered Medical Home as well as the complexities of clinic billing. For the past 7 months we’ve been working extensively behind the scenes with both our current vendor and Medent to prepare 10 years of patient care data so that it can be transferred without loss to our new EHR. Everyone on our staff has been undergoing training this month, and a cut-over time has been set: our last full clinical day using our current system will be this coming Thursday, January 29; 10 years of patient records will be downloaded and exported to Medent on Friday, January 30 and over the weekend; Medent will be up and running on all our computers on Monday, February 2 so we can set up our schedules and test it out to make sure everything is operating; and on Tuesday, February 3 we will “go live” and get back into the swing of patient care on Medent. It’s going to be a learning curve for all of us, so please pray for us and be patient! Special thanks go out to our neighbor and brother in the faith Gary Passero, who has been faithfully donating his time and expertise to tailoring our “export” process so that our data can be seamlessly “ingested” into Medent at the time of cut-over. We’re also deeply grateful for the support we’ve received from our current vendor and the staff at Medent during this time of preparation. And it’s our privilege to report that, by God’s grace, the costs of our transition have been almost completely underwritten by a substantial grant from the University of Rochester Medical Center and support from our CMMI grant and generous donors! Source...
Read MoreFocus on Missions
Focus On Missions Are you a health care professional? If so, please consider setting aside the date and signing up now for the MCCF Winter Missions Breakfast coming up on Saturday, January 24th, from 9-11 am at the Rochester Academy of Medicine, 1441 East Avenue. We’re looking forward to some inspiring presentations (see list below) so mark your calendars and respond now using the MCCF RSVP page. Drs. Elizabeth & Ethan Helm (Family Medicine & Pediatrics) – Bangladesh Dr. Ellen Dailor (Anesthesiology) – Shisong Hospital, Cameroon Paul Violanti, NP (Jericho Road Global Missions Director) – Sierra Leone Dr. David & Hannah Hough (Internal Medicine) – Nepal Dr. Chris Borghi-Cavallaro (Family Medicine) – Update from Managua Source...
Read MoreGratitude
Christmas card received from a grateful patient: “The Lord has brought me through the “Valley of the Shadow of Death” into Light & Life. He has used you very significantly and the ministry of His Branches. May the Lord continue to use you to bring Light & Life to the Arnett neighborhood and the Rochester area. “I thank the Lord for you often. “Happy Holidays and a Most joyous Christmas Celebration. Where would we be without our Victorious Savior, the Eternal God and Everlasting King of Kings !!” We thank God also for the privilege of serving others in His Name. God bless you all! Source...
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