Over the past few weeks (May 12-22) the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) hosted a completely virtual training called Cultivating Health Center Operations (CHCO). Originally intended to be a two and a half-day live event in South Carolina, COVID-19 provided an opportunity to test out a virtual version of the inaugural intermediate to advanced level training for health center operations leaders and managers. Azara Healthcare was thrilled to be invited to provide faculty for three of the eight sessions.
Janette Keddy, RN, BSN and Director of Client Success at Azara Healthcare provided insight into Getting The Most From Your EHR, where she discussed the right team members for success, structure for good ongoing governance, the value of standard documentation practices, and cultivating buy-in to this essential tool for safety and quality in primary care. Able to share challenges, successes and opportunities, Janette drew on her recent experience at a health center in the Boston area, as well as her extensive work with data throughout her career.
Delivering the content for Data-Driven Practice Transformation Parts I and II, I covered the value of business intelligence tools and having a strategy to provide direction for their acquisition and ongoing management. I also delved into the various needs for curated data across health center departments and included stakeholders beyond the walls of the practice. In addition, I reviewed best practices for keeping data healthy and credible, driving improvement with data, and putting data into practice at the point of care. Finally, I discussed considerations for integrating external data sources such as health information exchange and payer data with existing business intelligence tools to help health centers save system cost and excel in pay-for-performance or other alternative payment environments.
Despite its inaugural virtual delivery, NACHC received very positive feedback on its CHCO program and will consider offering it again in the future.