Addressing Clinic Efficiencies

This two-year project provided an opportunity for each health department to work with paid or state consultants to identify, develop and implement effective medical models of clinical efficiency to improve public health practice, and ultimately, better serve our communities. A final report will be developed and disseminated to the other Incubator Collaboratives through the Incubator website and conferences.

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Finance and Dental Work Groups

The Southern Piedmont Partnership continued funding regular meetings of its regional Finance and Dental work groups. Discussion focused on issues related to:

1. uncompensated care,
2. financing of clinical public health services,
3. analysis of family planning services outcomes, and
4. assessment and recommendations for local health department readiness for the new statewide Health Information System (HIS).

Both workgroups developed processes for generating revenue and sustaining financial independence, and proposed to integrate their efforts with the clinic efficiency project (see Addressing Clinic Efficiencies).

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Grant Writing Work Group

In 2006, the Southern Piedmont Partnership established a grant-writing work group whose function was to increase regional collaboration and capacity for developing grant proposals to sustain the work of the partnership.

This work group continued for the next two years focusing specifically on funding opportunities including:

1. technology-focused applications for public health practice,
2. infant mortality rate reduction, and
3. increasing Internet access for patients and providers in rural areas.

This work group also developed a regional application seeking the services of a CDC fellow. Products and processes developed by the work group will be shared widely with public health, academic, and private sector partners and colleagues.

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Accreditation – Regional Support

Due to tremendous response to its initial accreditation support initiative, the Southern Piedmont Partnership continued to collaboratively develop a “train the trainer” style model through which accredited health departments provide technical assistance to those agencies yet to undergo the accreditation process.

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Electronic Healthcare Access for Poor Rural Communities

The Southern Piedmont Partnership together with the Cabarrus Health Alliance received funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Federal Communications Commission to establish a health information exchange among healthcare providers in the region. This cutting-edge technology places a patient’s health information in the patient’s hands. With this user-friendly, web-based tool, a patient can review diagnoses and lab results and can send real-time information to their physicians about their up-to-the-minute condition using their cell phone or Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) from their home or elsewhere. This multifaceted project includes the

1. redesign of selected clinical workflows,
2. development of the personal health record application,
3. creation of a statewide broadband network serving even the most remote counties in the region, and
4. development of application solutions for handheld technologies.

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New Employee Orientation

As a product of the application of project management training supported by incubator efforts, Gaston County took the lead on developing a comprehensive orientation for new health department employees. This project strives to create a model for orienting new employees that consists of a new employee binder, orientation teams, on-line orientation programs, and web-based feedback surveys to improve these products and processes. In order to share the products developed from this initiative with the partnership and state, presentations of materials and recommended practices are hosted upon request at health departments throughout the partnership and state.

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Health Department of the 21st Century

Cabarrus County, in collaboration with a large group of stakeholders and national experts, set out to create a world class health department and regional training center. The Southern Piedmont Partnership used programmatic funds to inform the planning stages of what is to be the “Health Department of the 21st Century.”

Participating, and non-participating health departments alike will benefit from newly developed and tested public health practices as well as from a regionally located facility to coordinate and support their training needs. The product of this large collaboration is a detailed report (below) providing an outline of what a model health department looks like, what its roles and responsibilities are, and what infrastructure requirements exist.

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