Comagine Health

New on Our Blog: The Value of Data Integration in a Community Health Data Utility by Richard Gibson, MD, PhD, MBA Clinical Director Why should we try to integrate data from medical provider offices, community benefit organizations and public health agencies? The answer is we know that health depends on more than access to health care providers. Especially for those with lower incomes, reaching one’s full health potential often calls for multiple services in the community. A health data utility (HDU) can help. HDU is a national model where aggregated data from multiple sources serve a diverse set of organizations. Each community or state will have different organizations and agencies and somewhat different needs, but all will benefit from the core components illustrated by the following imagined story. Continue reading at https://lnkd.in/gBb_C5ut. #data #HealthDataUtility #HDU

It was a pleasure to see so many familiar faces at #Civitas2024 — and to make new connections. Thank you to Civitas Networks for Health for another incredible event! Pictured: Comagine Health Chief Growth Officer Dana Hawes, Indian Health Service Director Roselyn Tso and Comagine Health Senior Director of Patient Safety Deepthi (Eswaran) Rajeev, PhD.

As Comagine Health wraps up the final weeks of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' QIN-QIO 12th Scope of Work, we are celebrating by sharing some of the program’s impact over the past five years. In 2023, our Care Coordination team hosted six listening sessions with Medicare beneficiaries and family members or caregivers. Participants shared their lived experiences with primary care providers and hospital discharge processes. Common themes included the need for: • Supportive relationships • A coordinated health care system • Access to quality health care • Advocacy • Communication • Education and training We are grateful to everyone who joined us for these listening sessions. For more about what we learned, download our report, “Lived Experiences in the Medicare System: Perspectives From Beneficiaries and Advocates,” at https://lnkd.in/gYH6us4V. Visit https://lnkd.in/gCivs2P5 to find out more about the work of our Care Coordination team. #CareCoordination #QIO

Congratulations to Comagine Health Executive Director of Governance and Community Engagement Meredith Roberts for her Dedicated Mentor Award at the 2024 Civitas Networks for Health Annual Conference! The award recognizes someone who has consistently empowered others to encourage engagement and career paths in community leadership, health equity, health improvement, policy, advocacy, interoperability or technology. Meredith is truly deserving of this honor and we at Comagine Health couldn’t be prouder! We’ve been having a great time at the conference in Detroit, learning from experts during informative sessions and exchanging ideas with peers. If you’re here, stop by table 52 and say hi! We’ll be there alongside our affiliates BeyondHIE and UHIN. We’re proud to be a conference sponsor. #Civitas2024

Today is Indigenous Peoples' Day. During the four years of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' American Indian Alaska Native Healthcare Quality Initiative, Comagine Health and its partners developed many resources to support improved tribal health. You can find them on our website at https://lnkd.in/gW_fy-i7. #IndigenousPeoplesDay

As Comagine Health wraps up the final weeks of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' QIN-QIO 12th Scope of Work, we are celebrating by sharing some of the program’s impact over the past five years. Our opioids team worked with surgeons, pharmacists, primary care practices and other providers across our six-state region of Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and Washington to reduce opioids harms and implement overdose best practices. With hard work, determination and collaboration, we achieved some notable improvements for these settings. • Opioid Adverse Drug Impact: Our efforts to address opioid use disorder (OUD) helped contribute to the reduction in opioid adverse drug events, including deaths, by 10% across our six-state region from 2022 to 2024. • Pharmacy Engagement: Comagine Health expanded access to free naloxone in four underserved rural communities and connected three pharmacies with free naloxone resources. • Emergency Department (ED) Education: 37 ED providers from 17 facilities completed our ECHO™ learning series focusing on screening and referrals for OUD, buprenorphine initiation and naloxone prescribing. • Surgical Opioid Stewardship: Using Medicare Part A claims with a surgery CPT code and Part D outpatient prescription claims, Comagine Health developed a list of 66 surgeons with high-risk opiate prescribing practices across all six states. We sent these surgeons letters highlighting best practice guidelines and the Comagine Health opioid stewardship toolkit. • Innovations in OUD Care: 397 county-based public health and harm reduction professionals, representatives from state health departments, primary care providers, behavioral health providers, substance use disorder professionals and those who provide medications for opioid use disorder attended one or more of our educational sessions built around learning from people with OUD lived experience. Thank you to all health care partners and practitioners who participated in this important work. For more about Comagine Health’s QIN-QIO work, visit https://lnkd.in/d3kiSnnE. #QIO #Opioids

Going to the Utah Fall Conference on Substance Use in St. George? We’ll be there and we’d love to meet you! Stop by our booth, where Comagine Health experts can answer questions about opioid use disorder (OUD) and substance use disorder (SUD) treatment from an American Indian and Alaskan Native perspective with information about an upcoming learning collaborative, discuss best practices for OUD treatment in the emergency department and provide resources for new, free, on-demand OUD/SUD continuing medical education credits. In addition, Comagine Health Clinical Director Melissa Cheng will give two presentations you won’t want to miss: • “Impact of SUD in the Working Population – How to Create a Recovery-Friendly Workplace” will be at 10:30 a.m. Oct. 23. • “Opioids and Other Substances in Older Adults” is scheduled for 2:15 p.m. Oct. 24. Find out more about the conference at https://lnkd.in/gEG3K5Zu. #Opioids #SUD #OUD #MOUD #AIAN

Congratulations, Tracy, for joining the Board of Directors for 211info. We look forward to hearing about the impact you make! #CommunityHealth #SocialServices

Comagine Health will have a strong presence at the upcoming American Evaluation Association 2024 Conference, set for Oct. 21-26 in Portland, Oregon. • At 11:55 a.m. Oct. 24, Senior Research Associate Crystal Coyazo will present “Amplifying Indigenous Voices Through Data Sovereignty” with Jesse Grey Eagle of Native Analytics. • At 12:15 p.m. Oct. 24, Director of Systemwide Quality Improvement Evaluation Laura Myerchin Sklaroff will present “Trauma, Technology and Long COVID Care Access: A Multi-Cycle Evaluation Elevating Voices of Those With Long COVID to Frame Utility and Feasibility of Care Access Solutions.” • Health Care Evaluation Associate Ally Schenck will present the poster “Implementation of a Survey to Understand the Experiences of Community Health Workers.” • Research Coordinator Gustavo Henriquez will present the poster “Beyond the Noise: Identifying and Eliminating Bots From Survey Responses.” For more on the conference, visit https://lnkd.in/eTGtrrw. #evaluation #Eval24

As Comagine Health wraps up the final weeks of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services QIN-QIO 12th Scope of Work, we are celebrating by sharing some of the program’s impact over the past five years. Our long-term and post-acute care (LTPAC) team worked with nearly 650 facilities across our six-state region of Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and Washington. With hard work, determination and collaboration, we achieved some notable improvements for these facilities: • More nursing home residents are protected from pneumonia. Over the past three years, 464 more long-stay residents received the pneumonia vaccine in Idaho, improving the statewide rate by 5%. Meanwhile, 710 more long-stay residents received the pneumonia vaccine in Utah, improving the statewide rate by 7%. • Nursing home residents are less likely to be rehospitalized (return trips to the hospital within 30 days of hospitalization). Since October 2020, at least 247 fewer residents were rehospitalized while staying in Nevada nursing homes. • LTPAC facilities excelled in infection control and prevention. Comagine Health’s COVID Mitigation Medal recognized these efforts, based on resident and staff vaccination rates as well as other criteria. In less than two years, 29 New Mexico facilities earned the award. • Fewer patients were hospitalized because of infections typically acquired in health care settings. We eliminated hospitalizations due to Clostridioides difficile for long-stay residents in Oregon. For short-stay residents, we reduced the number of hospitalizations by 59% since September 2021. • About 4.5% fewer residents in Washington were prescribed opioids. Partly due to this effort, 91 fewer residents were hospitalized due to opioid-related adverse drug events — a 28.5% improvement since September 2020. We thank every one of our LTPAC facilities for their partnership and dedication to improving care for their residents! For more about Comagine Health’s QIN-QIO work, visit https://lnkd.in/d3kiSnnE. #LongTermCare #InfectionPrevention #Immunization #QIO #Opioids