In the Berkshire Hills, in western Massachusetts.
In yet another sign of the growing focus on care coordination, seven Massachusetts medical organizations have each received $434,000 grants to boost coordination among community healthcare providers to improve patient care and, presumably, better control costs, too.
The (Pittsfield, Mass.) Berkshire Eagle reported that the project’s goal is to achieve “the alignment of collaborative care practice models with supporting health IT to create new opportunities for patient care and quality improvement. It will create tools that allow clinicians to electronically receive timely hospital admission notifications and discharge summaries, and exchange services notes and care plans.”
The Massachusetts eHealth Institute (MeHI) at the Mass Tech Collaborative granted a total of $3.03 million to the seven organizations, based in Pittsfield, Brockton, Hyannis, Lowell, Newburyport, Springfield and Worcester.
For example, the funding will be used to establish the Berkshire Connected Communities Project, which will let seven local (Berkshire County) project partners share patient’s electronic medical records.
“The grant will help support connectivity between our multiple electronic health records across Berkshire County, facilitating communication between caregivers at various transition of care touch points,” Mark Snowise, M.D., medical director for physician practices at Berkshire Health Systems, told The Eagle.
Lia Spiliotes, interim executive director of Great Barrington, Mass.-based Community Health Programs, one of the seven local (Berkshire County) entities and a Federally Qualified Health Center, and a Cambridge Management Group partner and senior adviser with 25 years of experience in healthcare, noted to The Eagle that collaborations such as this one have been occurring in healthcare for some time.
“It helps everybody who is part of the collaboration. It basically means that when we book our patients they can move relatively seamlessly through the different organizations.”
“Healthcare has always been one of the lagging industries with technology and integrating it into care. With this money we all benefit. It lifts all the boats.”
Cambridge Management Group has done extensive work with community health organizations.
The Eagle reported that the project’s goal is to achieve “the alignment of collaborative care practice models with supporting health IT to create new opportunities for patient care and quality improvement. It will create tools that allow clinicians to electronically receive timely hospital admission notifications and discharge summaries, and exchange services notes and care plans.”
To read The Berkshire Eagle article, please hit this link.
