PNP Seeks Participants for Childhood Obesity Project

Melnic Consulting Group strongly encourages the educational advancement of pediatric nurse practitioner providers and often supports the efforts of PhD and DNP candidates as a resource for their scholarly projects.

Featured PhD Project:

TEXT2COPE

Lisa Militello, Board Certified Pediatric Nurse Practitioner and current doctoral candidate, worked in collaboration with expert faculty to develop the TEXT2COPE mobile messaging program for her dissertation. She is currently looking to collaborate with primary care clinics that serve families with young children in the Ann Arbor/Detroit areas.

Refer a patient to this trial

TEXT2COPE is a new pilot program which aims to promote healthy lifestyle behaviors and reduce childhood obesity through the use of parental education, cognitive behavior skills building and weekly tailored SMS Text messages to parents.

Melnic Consulting Group supports the educational advancement of pediatric providers, and strongly believes in the efforts being made to combat childhood obesity.  We are reaching out to the advanced practice nursing community in hopes that your facility will join in the program and/or help promote the program to your network of healthcare providers.  If you or anyone you know is looking for support with a DNP on PhD project, we'd be happy to discuss how Melnic Consulting Group can help. Please contact jill@melnic.com  

**Great News!  TEXT2COPE Facilitates Meeting ACO Quality Measures**
Contact Lisa Militello for more information:
312-813-5007, lisa.militello@asu.edu 

* Original COPE copyright by Bernadette Mazurek Melnyk, Adapted with permission by Lisa Militello, 2013.  Original PLAY copyright by Leigh Small, Adapted with permission by Lisa Militello, 2013.  This program is not to be copied and used without permission by the authors.

 

TEXT2COPE Program at a Glance:

• For parents of overweight or obese 3-5 year olds (per CDC guidelines)
• In collaboration with primary care providers/office sites
• Goal:  To test the acceptability, feasibility, and effects of an intervention aimed to promote healthy lifestyle behaviors
• Intervention (7 weeks) (delivered by Lisa Militello, CPNP)
• Components
• Education (nutrition, physical activity, screen time, label reading, portion size)
• Cognitive behavior skills building (problem solving, goal setting, overcoming barriers, communication, habit formation)

What does this mean for the clinic staff, providers, and administration?

Click Here For More Program Details

   
Meeting ACO Quality Measures
While ACO measures have not been fully integrated into pediatric populations, TEXT2COPE Program facilitates understanding current ACO quality measures.
The ACO quality measures align with those used in other CMS quality programs, such as the Physician Quality Reporting System and the Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Programs. The ACO quality measures also align with the National Quality Strategy and other HHS priorities, such as the Million Hearts Initiative. In developing the final rule, CMS listened to industry concerns about focusing more on outcomes and considered a broad array of measures that would help to assess an ACO's success in delivering high- quality health care at both the individual and population levels.

PATIENT/CAREGIVER EXPERIENCE
ACO 1 (NQF #0005): Getting Timely Care, Appointments, and Information
ACO 2 (NQF #0005): How Well Your Doctors Communicate
ACO 3 (NQF #0005): Patient Rating of Doctor
ACO 4 (NQF #0005): Access to Specialist
ACO 5 (NQF #0005): Health Promotion and Education
ACO 6 (NQF #0005): Shared Decision Making
ACO 7 (NQF #0006): Health Status/Functional Status

To learn more about meeting ACO Quality Measures with TEXT2COPE contact:
Lisa Militello 312-813-5007, lisa.militello@asu.edu


To inquire about PNP jobs visit Melnic Consulting Group or contact: Jill Gilliland 800-886-7906 jill@melnic.com

Accountable Care Organzations ACO

According to Healthcare.gov

Accountable Care Organizations: Improving Care Coordination for People with Medicare

The Affordable Care Act includes a number of policies to help physicians, hospitals, and other caregivers improve the safety and quality of patient care and make health care more affordable. By focusing on the needs of patients and linking payments to outcomes, these delivery system reforms will help improve the health of individuals and communities and slow cost growth.
On March 31, 2011, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released proposed new rules to help doctors, hospitals, and other providers better coordinate care for Medicare patients through Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs).

Need for and Benefits of Coordinated, Accountable Care

About Accountable Care Organizations
Under the proposed rule, an ACO refers to a group of providers and suppliers of services (e.g., hospitals, physicians, and others involved in patient care) that will work together to coordinate care for the patients they serve with Original Medicare (that is, those who are not in a Medicare Advantage private plan). The goal of an ACO is to deliver seamless, high quality care for Medicare beneficiaries. The ACO would be a patient-centered organization where the patient and providers are true partners in care decisions.

The Affordable Care Act specifies that an ACO may include the following types of groups of providers and suppliers of Medicare-covered services:
•ACO professionals (i.e., physicians and hospitals meeting the statutory definition) in group practice arrangements,
•Networks of individual practices of ACO professionals,
•Partnerships or joint ventures arrangements between hospitals and ACO professionals, or
•Hospitals employing ACO professionals, and
•Other Medicare providers and suppliers as determined by the Secretary.

Sharing Savings Shared Savings Program details, visit www.ftc.gov/opp/aco/.

Measuring Quality ImprovementThe rule proposes quality measures in five key areas that affect patient care:
•Patient/caregiver experience of care;
•Care coordination;
•Patient safety;
•Preventive health; and
•At-risk population/frail elderly health.

The proposed rule sets out proposed performance standards for these measures and a proposed scoring methodology, including proposals to prevent providers in ACOs from being penalized for treating patients with more complex conditions.

Additional Topics covered in the article are:
Improving Care for Patients
Antitrust Guidance for Providers in ACOs
One Part of Quality Improvement

To read this article in full visit Healthcare.gov

To inquire about jobs visit Melnic Consulting Group or contact:Jill Gilliland800-886-7906jill@melnic.com