It is with great pride that the UCF REC introduces one of our Meaningful Use Vanguards, Raj Desai, into the Spring 2013 Health IT Fellows Class!
Over 70 letters of intent were submitted to the Office of the National Coordinator for the Inaugural Health IT Fellow Class. Of those, 28 champions from 18 states were chosen. Raj is one of two fellows chosen to represent the state of Florida.
Health IT Fellow Purpose Statement:
The purpose of the Health IT Fellows (“Fellows”) is to provide grassroots insight and critical feedback/critique of appropriateness, clarity, and effectiveness of resources, tools, and other technical assistance initiatives of the ONC and others geared towards their peers. Fellows are empowered to ensure these and other communications are realistic, authentic, and clear to their colleagues in an effort to ensure that all messages and tools resonate with the provider and practice community. Fellows also act as champions to these provider and practice community colleagues on a local and national scale. Fellows will lend their voice and experience regarding ways providers can leverage Health IT to improve patient engagement and experience in the delivery of patient care, making Meaningful Use meaningful.
What Will the Fellows Do?
All Fellows are expected to be active participants during all Fellow-specific meetings in addition to the team and independent work expected from each Fellow, including:
- Identify an internal quality initiative that Makes MU meaningful (may be planned or existing)
- Participate in ONC Meetings/Events (ad hoc), including Co-Lead (with ONC support) on one MUVer call and Touch-base Meetings with ONC
- Work with ONC HealthIT.gov team for in-depth profile
- Work with local REC, HIE, and other initiatives to be a local resource for peers
- Read/review at minimum three tools/Healthit.gov webpages/initiatives and provide feedback (suggested tools will be provided based on areas of interest)
All Fellows will be responsible for working with their track cohort to identify what the track vision for the six to eight months will entail, with the goal of having a track-specific contribution to the ONC Annual Meeting (anticipated November 2013).
What are the Four Tracks?
In order to promote relationship development and allow for a mature feedback process, the Fellows have been divided into four tracks. Each track will contain of 7 Fellows and will be led by the Health IT Vanguard Coordinator in conjunction with ONC experts. Although all Fellows will receive a primary Track assignment, we encourage all to participate in the provision of feedback, both track-specific and on a myriad of other topical areas such as consumer engagement. The tracks correspond directly with the National Quality Strategy goals of better care, better health, and lower cost; specifically, priorities 1, 3, 4, and 5. The track breakdowns are as follows:
1) Patient Safety
3) Care Coordination
4) Million Hearts
5) Leveraging MU in Community
National Quality Strategy’s Six Priorities:
1) Making care safer by reducing harm caused in the delivery of care.
2) Ensuring that each person and family are engaged as partners in their care.
3) Promoting effective communication and coordination of care.
4) Promoting the most effective prevention and treatment practices for the leading causes of mortality, starting with cardiovascular disease.
5) Working with communities to promote wide use of best practices to enable healthy living.
6) Making quality care more affordable for individuals, families, employers, and governments by developing and spreading new health care delivery models
Source: http://www.ahrq.gov/workingforquality/nqs/nqs2012annlrpt.pdf
Raj and the UCF REC will be representing Central Florida at the Health IT Fellows Spring 2013 Class Kickoff Meeting in Washington, DC later this month.
Congratulations Raj!