Critical Health Areas Project (CHAP) Newsletter

Volume 2, Issue 5

August 30, 2007

IN THIS ISSUE

Announcement:

Annual Meeting Overview
Save the Date! CHAP Meeting October 3-5, Saint Louis, MO

Chronic Care and Quality:

Improving Cardiac Care for Hispanic and African American Patients

Healthcare Access:

North Carolina Heading Towards a High Risk Pool

Addiction Prevention and Treatment:

Identifying At-Risk Patients

Providers and Workforce:

Grants to Strengthen the Health Care Workforce

Technical Assistance Support Available

Announcements

After more than 10 years with the Health Chairs Project, Kala Ladenheim is leaving NCSL. She sent us this note.

Dear CHAP members,

Effective September 1^st, I will be leaving NCSL to return home to Maine, where I will be president/CEO of the Maine Center for Public Health. I am delighted to be returning to Maine and excited about the new opportunities the job offers. But leaving NCSL is hard. NCSL has been an extraordinary place to work, and I’m pleased to believe that the colleagues I am leaving constitute one of the smartest and most vibrant units in a great organization. Working with the Health Chairs has been the highlight of a great job. Your knowledge, commitment, political and policy skills have been a source of inspiration and a challenge to excel.

Forum Director Donna Folkemer (Donna.Folkemer@ncsl.org) will continue to lead the Critical Health Areas Project, with close support from Tara Lupin (tara.lubin@ncsl.org).

With this move I become part of the NCSL alumni association. I hope to continue to hear from many of you; email is cheap and easy and you are my community. Maine is gorgeous at least 6 months of the year (and to my taste, all 12) and I hope to see some of you up here! My email in Maine after September 10 will be kladenheim@mcph.org.

Annual Meeting Overview

NCSL had another highly successful Annual Meeting this year in Boston. It was great to see all the CHAPs who were able to make it out to the Annual Chairs/CHAP tea. To see all the excellent health programs that took place this year please go here http://www.ncsl.org/programs/health/am07summary_health.htm

Video and audio from a number of non-health sessions from Annual Meeting can be found here http://www.ncsl.org/annualmeeting/multimedia.htm

Save the Date! CHAP Meeting October 3-5, Saint Louis, MO

Save the date! Emerging Health Leaders (CHAP) meeting October 3-5, Saint Louis, MO. We heard you loud and clear: You want your own stand-alone meeting, and you want more than a day. By now, you should have received an invitation, a description of the meting and a fax-back reply form. To get more information or to register, contact Deborah Sward at 202.624.3585 or at Deborah.sward@ncsl.org. Send any requests for program topics or activities to Kory Mertz at health.chaps@ncsl.org.

Chronic Care and Quality

Improving Cardiac Care for Hispanic and African American Patients

A national program funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has shown improvements in cardiac care for Hispanics and African Americans. Ten hospitals around the country have been participating in the program, Expecting Success, since 2005. In addition to improving the cardiac care provided to these minorities, the goals of the program are to develop effective quality improvement strategies and models, to share and encourage the use of those strategies, and to share lessons learned from the project. The program focuses on improving the quality of inpatient care for African Americans and Latinos and also improving the quality of community care. These goals are accomplished by using quality improvement techniques, evidence-based practices and data collection. Each hospital site reports and shares data with other sites, as well as its improvement strategies and lessons learned.

A recent report revealed that in the first year data have shown that the participating hospitals have significantly improved heart care for the target populations. The data show that the participating hospitals increased the median percentage of individuals receiving recommended heart failure care from 41 percent to 68 percent. There were other improvements in core performance measures as well.

Resources

National Health Disparities Report 2006
http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/nhdr06/nhdr06.htm

Fact sheet: Addressing Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care
http://www.ahrq.gov/research/disparit.htm

Expecting Success: Excellence in Cardiac Care
http://www.expectingsuccess.org/

Healthcare Access

North Carolina Heading Towards a High Risk Pool

North Carolina’s legislature approved H 265 which would establish a state government subsidized health insurance pool for residents with serious illnesses who cannot otherwise afford or qualify for private coverage. The bill was sent to Governor Easley for signature.

Participants in the high-risk insurance pool will be responsible for 65 percent of their premiums, which would cost between 150 and 200 percent of the premiums of a healthy individual’s coverage. The state will fund the remaining cost of coverage through an existing health premium tax and a $700,000 contribution from the state employee health plan. The Health and Wellness Trust Fund, which administers a portion of a 1998 tobacco settlement, will provide an initial payment of $5 million for the pool. Another proposal to establish a new tax on private health insurance policies to help fund the bill was rejected by key senators.

Some supporters of the bill expect the health insurance coverage provided through the pool to help an estimated 14,000 residents over the first decade. Enrollment will begin in January 2009. Thirty-four states already offer health insurance plans for high-risk beneficiaries. For more information go to http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=46698.

Addiction Prevention and Treatment

Identifying At-Risk Patients

In an effort to stem higher-than-average substance abuse rates, twenty health clinics in Wisconsin are taking part in the Wisconsin Initiative to Promote Healthy Lifestyles. This program, established by a $12.5 million grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, will help these clinics establish Screening, Brief Intervention, Referral and Treatment services for its patients. Doctors will seek to determine whether any patients have a substance abuse problem by asking them four key questions as part of any routine health-care visit. At-risk patients will be encouraged to meet with an on-site counselor to discuss their problem and develop a course for change. The initiative is administered by the Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services and coordinated by the University of Wisconsin Department of Family Medicine. Substance abuse is currently the fourth leading cause of death in the Badger State.

Providers and Workforce

Grants to Strengthen the Health Care Workforce

The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJ) and Northwest Health Foundation have recently awarded grants to universities and local organizations. HRSA’s $18.6 million in grants are aimed at supporting training programs for nurses, physicians and physician assistants. The goals of the grants include increasing education for racial and ethnic minorities and other underrepresented groups in nursing, supporting residency programs in family and preventive medicine, and developing and running programs to train physician assistants. For more information, go to http://newsroom.hrsa.gov/releases/2007/BHPRgrantsAugust.htm.

RWJ and Northwest Health Foundation have given 11 partnerships $250,000 each to develop local solutions to the nursing shortage. The grants are part of a five-year $10 million project called Partners Investing in Nursing’s Future (www.PartnersinNursing.org), which last year launched 10 partnerships involving more than 140 local foundations, nursing organizations and workforce development boards. For more on the grant recipients, go to http://www.rwjf.org/newsroom/newsreleasesdetail.jsp?id=10507.

In other news:

Loan programs try to lure more nursing students (Rhode Island)
http://www.projo.com/news/content/NURSES_SCHOLARSHIPS_08-09-07_7E6M6QI.31e0b6a.html

Missouri judge rejects new midwifery law on a legal technicality
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/missouristatenews/story/9C7ABBB40F5E908F8625733200113DCA?OpenDocument

Technical Assistance Support Available…just give us a call

Through the Critical Health Areas Project (CHAP), NCSL has been funded to respond in greater depth to state legislatures’ requests for technical assistance concerning chronic care and quality, healthcare access, addiction prevention and treatment, and providers and workforce. Topics are, of course, tailored to your state's needs. Examples of types of assistance available include support for a briefing or workshop for a legislative committee or study commission that provides information from other states and experts in the field or working with legislative staff to identify related actions in other states and useful resources. If you are interested in learning more about the services NCSL could provide, please contact any of the individuals listed here.

Chronic Care & Quality: Carla Curran, carla.curran@ncsl.org, 303-364-1373

Healthcare Access: Donna Folkemer, donna.folkemer@ncsl.org, 202-624-8171

Addiction Prevention & Treatment: Allison Colker, allison.colker@ncsl.org, 202-624-3581

Providers & Workforce: Tara Lubin, tara.lubin@ncsl.org, 202-624-3558

For more information on CHAP and these critical issue areas, visit our website! http://www.ncsl.org/programs/health/forum/chap/index.htm

The Critical Health Areas Project (CHAP) newsletter is published monthly by the Forum for State Health Policy Leadership at NCSL and funded through the generous support of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

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