Pendleton Community Care, Inc. began its Home Visit Program in January 2015, by receiving funding through a HRSA Expanded Services opportunity. The program is staffed with a Care Manager (Whitney Hedrick, LPN) and Physician Assistant (Martha Williams, DHSc, MS, PA-C) who go into elderly patients' homes that cannot make it to the Health Center due to lack of transportation or mobility. 

Patients were delaying being seen as often as they should to monitor their chronic conditions due to their inability to get to the Health Center. In addition to removing the transportation barrier, treating the patient in their home setting and evaluating the home environment enhances the team's delivery of preventative care, education, and patient monitoring. Our provider consults with the Health Center Physicians to coordinate care plans and patient progress. This program began utilizing in-home monitoring equipment for its high risk patients in January 2017 and has seen a reduction in the number of ED visits, hospitalizations, and significant illnesses by 50 percent from the previous year when there was not monitoring equipment in the home.   They make their visits by region to optimize the number of patients seen and minimize the time traveled.

The number of youths with mental health challenges is simply staggering. One-half of all lifetime diagnosable mental health conditions begin by the age of 14 and one in five adolescents in this country shows significant symptoms of emotional distress.  That means in a classroom of 25 students, there will be five whose learning is impeded and possibly the learning of the other twenty children.

It is well researched that the presence of mental illness in children and adolescents, if not properly diagnosed and treated, increases the likelihood of significant health issues for them as adults and greatly limits their ability to become productive members of society.

For children, the first signs of mental illness or emotional distress can emerge in the school environment as the greater demands are placed on them. It's well known that mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, and family problems often are the root causes of poor academic performance, disciplinary issues, and truancy.  School-based mental health programs offer the opportunity to provide children with mental health related prevention, early identification and treatment. The ongoing research shows that the growing number of school-based mental health programs are effective in helping students.  Click here to read more from the Harvard Review of Psychiatry.

Last Tuesday, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced release of the Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) for the Federally-facilitated Exchange Navigator Program for 2018.  Under this FOA, CMS expects to award $10 million for a 1-year project period and a minimum of $100,000 will be available in each of the 34 Federally-facilitated Exchange states to provide assistance to Marketplace consumers.

To access the Funding Opportunity Announcement, visit: http://www.grants.gov, and search for CFDA # 93.332. 

Applications are due August 9, 2018 by 3:00pm EST and must be submitted through  http://www.grants.gov.

 

The ECRI Institute recently shared the below information regarding Medication-Assisted Treatment for Opioid Use Diisorder.

"Opioid use disorder and opioid overdose have escalated into a complex, widespread-and increasingly deadly-public health crisis.

However, there is reason to be cautiously optimistic: evidence-based approaches, such as medication-assisted treatment (MAT), have been shown to improve patient outcomes.

While the need for MAT has never been greater, access has been difficult or impossible for many individuals. Federally qualified health centers play a vital role in addressing the opioid crisis, including providing MAT to patients who are medically underserved, geographically isolated, and vulnerable-all of whom are at greater risk of opioid use disorder.

Health centers and free clinics that have MAT programs, or that are considering developing an MAT program, can use this Practice Alert to balance increased access to much-needed treatment with processes that also support patient safety and risk management."