Visit our website for meeting times and places at www.mrhc.net.

If you need a user ID and password,

please contact Paula Soine

at (320) 564-9118 (ext. 12) or psoine@mrhc.net
 

AHRQ HIT Project Update:

Back in late September the MRHC was awarded a $200,000 Health Information Technology (HIT) Planning grant. Since then we’ve been going like a freight train to get to the point of applying for the 3-year $1.5 million Implementation grant, due April 14^th.  The objective of the grant is to support organizational and community-wide implementation and diffusion of HIT and to assess the extent to which HIT contributes to measurable and sustainable improvements in patient safety, cost and overall quality of care.  The Planning Committee, with the help of one of our consultants, Health Planning and Management Resources, developed a Strategic Plan for this project, which is to facilitate the implementation of an Electronic Medical/Health Record (EHR) system for Cooperative members to enable them to: (1) improve the quality of patient care by giving health-care providers useful measures of how their treatments and diagnostic protocols compare with the best published medical practices, and (2) increase the accuracy and efficiency with which members comply with the stipulations of their contracts, including their quality-improvement activities; and to establish a secure connection to allow data exchange among Cooperative members and other referral locations for patient referral and care with the best available protections of personal health information.  The Board unanimously approved the plan and strategies at their February meeting.

With the Strategic Plan and strategies in mind, our other consultant, Valor Solutions, prepared a Preliminary Report outlining HIT implementation guiding principles, the MRHC Physician Workgroup Vision, current MRHC HIT and external environments, vendor criteria analysis and comparison, a yearly cost breakdown, and an aggressive implementation plan, which would include installing EHR systems in 11 clinics and five hospitals over the three year period. A brief survey was sent out to all MRHC members to gauge their interest level in being one of the five facilities to install in the first year. We were overwhelmed that 77% (37) of our members were highly interested in wanting to participate in this project, illustrating how timely this project is.

In order to select the pilot sites, surveys and workshops will be taking place in coming months with interested facilities to determine EHR readiness in areas such as organizational culture and leadership, care standardization, and IT infrastructure.  A more intense vendor analysis will also be conducted to define and weigh criteria for the EHR system or systems selected for the pilot sites. These are exciting times for the Cooperative!
 - Paula Soine, HIT Project Coordinator

2005 Board Members

Brendon Cullinan, M.D., Montevideo Clinic - Chair
Larry Grong, D.O., Lac qui Parle Clinic– Madison– Vice Chair
Leroy Meyering, CFO, Rice Memorial Hospital – Secretary /Treasurer
Glenn Haugo, Administrator, Johnson Memorial Health Services - Dawson

• Mark Huntington, M.D., Northside Medical Center – Ortonville
• Romulo Kabatay, M.D., Appleton Clinic
• David Koster, Pharmacist, Koster Pharmacy-Tyler
• Dale Kruger, Administrator, Tyler Healthcare Center
• Richard Mulder, M.D., Ivanhoe Clinic
• Tom Richter, Administrator, Madison Hospital
• Alan Roiseland M.D., Family Practice Medical Center-Willmar
• James Schulte, Administrator, Redwood Area Hospital
• Thomas Witt, Pharmacist, Witt’s Pharmacy--Springfield
  
  
   

The next gathering of the Compliance Committee is scheduled for Thursday, April 21^st, from 9:00 to 11:00 am at the Chippewa County Montevideo Hospital.  A terrific line-up of speakers with Dr. George Gordon and Kathy Hunt of Rice Memorial Hospital giving a presentation on EMTALA; Jane McGrath from Stratis Health giving an overview of HPMP (Hospital Payment Monitoring Program) and highlighting current CMS target areas; and wrapping up with Diane Amell, Training Officer with MN OSHA, providing an OSHA update in healthcare and going over ergonomic issues in the healthcare industry.  Don’t miss it! 

MRHC 1^st Annual Education Event

Saturday, May 14, 2005

Prairie’s Edge Convention Center

Granite Falls, MN

Please be sure to register soon for this CME event. Our event has a convenient local location, is low cost, and offers nine credits. Local MRHC member physicians will be presenting relevant topics.

Presenters:

Eleazar P. Briones
Lee Cafferty
Amy Ellingson
George Gordon
Mark Huntington
Martin Janning
John Ling
William Sheehan

Remember the fees for the event increase after April 15^{th
We are sure you will enjoy the day filled with information and great food.
See you there!}

Quality Corner-Shirley Anderson

I would like to thank everyone for the great “welcome aboard” greetings I have received. I have met some of you and have talked to most of you on the phone.  I look forward to working with all of you and hopefully all the names, faces, and voices will soon match. I have had a very busy schedule my first five months---and am excited to complete all the projects, reports and survey results that are flooding in the door.  I will continue the quarterly reward program for clinics submitting paperwork in on time.  This is determined by tracking all paperwork, not just from one project.  The fourth quarter reward winners resulted in a two-way tie for 1^st place:  Hendricks Medical Center and Williams IntegraCare Clinic; and a three-way tie for 2^nd place: Ivanhoe Clinic, Tyler Medical Clinic and ELEAH Medical Center. All your extra effort to meet the deadlines is certainly appreciated.  Thanks!

Hospitals will be distributing the Acute Care Patient Satisfaction Survey continually this year and I will be doing survey results quarterly.  In order to get the counts that I need, I will be labeling the surveys: 2^nd QTR, 3^rd QTR and 4^th QTR. We will be reviewing this at our next Quality Council meeting on April 20, 2005.

Please mark your calendars for our April 20^th Quality Council meetings.  Hospital Quality meeting is 10:30-Noon and Clinic Quality meeting is 1:00-2:30. Stratis Health will be making a presentation on Health Literacy. I encourage everyone to attend this presentation.  PLUS it will give us a chance to discuss any additions, corrections or concerns with our surveys. Your input and needs are very important to MRHC. See you there.

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