MeHI's Connected Communities Program catalyzed collaboration and advanced the adoption and use of Health IT to improve patient care and reduce healthcare costs.
At the time of this program, all hospitals, all large provider groups, and the overwhelming majority of other providers use Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems (based on MeHI's data collection research), adoption of health information exchange to coordinate care across providers was not yet mainstream. The Connected Communities program encouraged providers to work together to develop coordinated strategies, processes and workflows that leveraged the eHealth capabilities of their community.
Through this program, MeHI collaborated with a diverse set of community stakeholders to inform the development of Community e-Health Assessments, which identified the Health IT needs and priorities of healthcare communities across the state. Communities then had the opportunity to address these needs and priorities through MeHI's Connected Communities Implementation Grant (see below).
Engagement Process
To better understand the Massachusetts Health IT and HIE ecosystem, MeHI conducted a needs assessment of healthcare stakeholders in 15 communities across the state.
Through interviews and roundtables, the eHealth Community Managers gathered input from participants centered on four domains: clinical/business needs, internal challenges, external barriers, and ideas for improvement. Responses were collected, codified into categories, and ranked by the frequency of response.
MeHI held roundtable meetings in each community to present and discuss the findings. Through group dialogue, top categories and themes evolved. Based on the roundtable feedback, we ranked the categories to identify eHealth priorities for Community eHealth Plans. The goal was to develop actionable plans that show value for each community.
Community eHealth Assessments
The Community eHealth Plans were then integrated into a grant program to align community plans and grants.
In Spring 2016, MeHI announced $3M in grants to eight healthcare organizations working with 78 partner organizations. The grants were made through MeHI’s Connected Communities Implementation Grant program, a statewide effort designed to enhance collaboration and communication among healthcare providers within a community through the use of innovative technologies, electronic health records and health information exchanges to address real-world, practical and measurable healthcare needs among the patients they serve and to improve care coordination.
View the Implementation Grant Highlights (PDF).