During an event in Rhode Island on Friday, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius praised the launch of the state's Beacon Community program, Providence Business News reports.
While speaking at the Thundermist Community Health Center in Woonsocket, Sebelius emphasized the importance of IT initiatives in improving health care access, quality and outcomes.
Rhode Island Beacon Community
The Rhode Island Quality Institute received a federal grant to administer the Rhode Island Beacon Community program, which will focus on:
- Redesigning health care delivery systems;
- Reducing preventable hospital and emergency department use;
- Reducing tobacco use;
- Reducing the effects of undiagnosed and untreated depression; and
- Improving the quality of care for patients with diabetes (Asinof, Providence Business News, 1/7).
The Rhode Island Quality Institute plans to direct its grant toward medical practices that already have adopted electronic health records and are working to establish themselves as patient-centered medical homes. Medical homes involve a team of health professionals who coordinate care for patients with chronic conditions.
The institute has selected 28 medical practices -- which include 50 sites and 225 health care providers -- to participate in the Beacon program. The practices will receive technical assistance from the institute to scale up their EHR implementation.
The Beacon program eventually will establish a statewide database indicating whether the medical home model is helping to improve health care delivery (Freyer, Providence Journal, 1/8).