Adult & Child Health Receives Federal Funding to Expand and Optimize Telehealth Technology
Adult & Child Health (A&C) was awarded grant funding from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for healthcare technology to improve efficiency and access to care. Announced in early November, the FCC awarded Adult and Child Health and 74 other healthcare organizations grants through its COVID-19 Telehealth Program. As a part of the CARES Act, the COVID-19 program supports the efforts of health care providers to continue serving their patients by providing reimbursement for telecommunications services, information services, and connected devices necessary to enable telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic. Adult & Child Health was awarded $516,208 for laptops, tablets, Wi-Fi hot spots, a telehealth platform, and remote patient monitoring devices such as glucometers, otoscopes, stethoscopes, and blood pressure monitors. This allows providers to treat patients remotely and directly in the community from homeless shelters to schools – and to support treatment not only for COVID-19, but also for health care conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and chronic respiratory issues, among others. As a Federally Qualified Health Center Look Alike program, Adult and Child Health’s four family medicine clinics have been providing telehealth services since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Expansion of telehealth services funded by the FCC grant coincides with and complements a larger healthcare technology initiative as A&C moves to a new medical records system. In December 2021, A&C will switch to a new electronic medical record system (EMR), NextGen. The implementation of this industry leading EMR will lead to improved customer services, access, efficiency, and improved health outcomes. Working within NextGen, A&C providers will have access to a telehealth platform fully integrated within the patient medical records or seamless workflows and ease of use for both patients and staff. “We are very excited about this program. There is a lot of reach within this technology project. We’ll be able to better equip our patients to monitor their chronic conditions from home, our staff to provide high quality remote care. We’re also able to better support our community partners in homeless engagement projects and school-based telehealth services for parents,” said Kerri Lewis, Chief Information Officer at Adult & Child Health. “It’s very exciting because ultimately it improves the health of the patients who have serious chronic health conditions and need additional monitoring.” Adult & Child Health will utilize FCC grant funding to purchase new end user hardware, medical testing devices, waiting room kiosks, and remote monitoring technology. The NextGen EMR, with integrated telehealth capability, is scheduled to be implemented in early December and remote patient monitoring will be available for rollout in early 2022. Adult & Child Health is an accredited nonprofit primary care, behavioral health, and social services provider with multiple locations in central Indiana. We strive for caring communities, where every child, adult and family have the opportunities they need to live healthy, happy, productive lives. For more information about Adult & Child Health programs, please contact Tina Serrano, Director of Strategic Initiatives, at 317-882-5122.
Partnering to address services to Indy’s homeless population – iHOST
Months ago, a group of homeless service agencies in Indy pulled together to submit a federal grant proposal which would support a coordinated assault on the city’s homeless population. We’re super excited to announce our fine city has been awarded multi-year federal SAMHSA funding to implement iHOST! This is a great opportunity for all of us to get on the same page to better identify and serve people who experience homelessness. There are great people doing great work every day in Indy – now we can start doing great work together and create some synergy. iHOST, an integrated team of key staff, will represent Adult and Child Health, Eskenazi Midtown Mental Health, Outreach Inc, Pour House, and Horizon House. iHOST will build rapport among organizations and individuals experiencing homelessness; stabilize individuals with psychiatric symptoms; address addiction; assess the needs and barriers to treatment, housing and employment in the community; provide services or linkage to address those needs and barriers; help individuals obtain and maintain permanent housing and employment; link individuals to ongoing mental health and/or addiction services; and follow housed clients to ensure needs are addressed and to provide resources for success. For each client, participating service providers, including a case manager and housing staff, will develop an individualized care/intervention plan that utilizes a strengths-based approach. The core of the project and its organization of services, including data collection of evaluation measures, will rely on service providers communicating daily via a shared cloud-based client tracking software system, email, telephone, and/or face-to-face meetings. Led by the Coalition for Homelessness Intervention & Prevention (CHIP), the steering committee will meet quarterly to monitor the goals and objectives of the grant project; increase coordination with other entities engaged in planning the jurisdiction’s response to homelessness; and ensure the provision of direct treatment and recovery support service to the population of focus. The project’s population of focus will be individuals who have: (1) a substance use disorder (SUD), serious mental illness (SMI), serious emotional disturbance (SED), or co-occurring mental and substance use disorders (CODs); and (2) are either: youth under 18 years of age, young adults between 18 and 24 years of age, or the chronically homeless, including those residing in jail or in the process of re-entry.
Multi-Agency Homeless Outreach Team
In June 2014, the City of Indianapolis released a proclamation recognizing the blended efforts of multiple agencies to better engage the homeless population in Indy. Adult and Child Center is very proud to be part of this blended outreach team and happy to play an active role in working with people who experience homelessness, engaging them in services, and helping them recovery from mental health and/or addictions issues. We are proud to be their partners in health, inspiring hope and well-being.
