Region 15 Category 1 and 2 Projects
Infrastructure Development / Innovation and Redesign
Executive Summaries of Categories 1-2 Projects
Project Title / Brief Project Description138951211.1.1
Expanded Residency
University Medical Center of El Paso (UMC) / This project will establish an ongoing rotation for new specialty residencies and fellowships and additional residents based at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (Texas Tech) in El Paso.
138951211.1.2
Electronic Medical Records
University Medical Center of El Paso (UMC) / Gaining access to national databases for Trauma and Surgical cases will save time, increase patient satisfaction, and allow practitioners to provide more holistic diagnoses and treatment. The implementation of robust EMR and data collecting systems will provide the infrastructure to improve patient care by increasing compliance with evidence-based standards of care and decrease untoward events.
138951211.1.3
Establish More Primary Care Clinics UMC NHC – West
University Medical Center of El Paso (UMC) / Expand, increase, and improve access to primary and urgent care services within the RHP Region, by opening a new Primary Care Clinic serving the Westside of El Paso.
138951211.1.4
Establish More Primary Care Clinics UMC NHC – East University Medical Center of El Paso (UMC) / This project will expand access to primary and urgent care in the RHP Region, and more specifically the East area of El Paso County by relocating and expanding the Montwood Clinic to a much larger site offering many additional services including additional primary care staff, evening and Saturday hours, Women’s Health Services including ultrasound, a regional laboratory and a pharmacy.
138951211.1.5
Expand Existing Primary Care Capacity – NHCs Ysleta and Fabens
University Medical Center of El Paso (UMC) / This project will expand access to primary and urgent care in the RHP Region, and more specifically El Paso County. UMC will expand primary and urgent care staffing, services and hours at two existing Neighborhood Health Centers at Ysleta and Fabens helping them to become minor hub sites. A related project to these clinics will evolve them into comprehensive medical homes.
138951211.1.6
Establish Nurse Residency and Simulation Lab
University Medical Center of El Paso (UMC) / Under this project, UMC will develop, implement, and evaluate a comprehensive nurse graduate residency program. Establish Nurse Residency and Simulation Lab for Graduate Nurses to focus on specialty care training, reinforce didactic content, learn and practice skills, and develop critical thinking, decision making and organizational skills, while providing holistic patient care. The goal is to improve overall retention of nurses with focus on highly specialized care for UMC’s entire patient population, especially the uninsured and indigent patients UMC regularly treats.
138951211.1.7
Enhance Performance Improvement and Reporting Capacity at UMC NHCs
University Medical Center of El Paso (UMC) / This project will allow us to document the improvement in the quality of care at its UMC neighborhood health centers by upgrading the EMR system to be able to electronic prescribe medications, meeting meaningful use standards and tracking HEDIS measures for higher quality care and better documentation.
138951211.1.8
Inserting Behavioral Health Trained Practitioners into a Non-Behavioral Health Setting. Psychiatric Nurse Liaison Service
University Medical Center of El Paso (UMC) / This project will evaluate the need to have Psychiatric trained nurses and social workers at UMC for patients undergoing medical/surgical treatment that also have a psychiatric condition. It will also review current hours of psychiatrist consultative service in the ED and on the inpatient unit. A program will be established to provide round the clock psychiatric care to our medical patients in need.
094109802.1.1
Physician and Mid-Level Recruitment and Training
HCA Las Palmas Del Sol / This project will increase recruitment and training of physicians and mid-level practitioners. Training will entail partnering with educational institutions in the area to increase the hands-on training for physicians and mid-level practitioners.
094109802.1.2
Outpatient Women’s Imaging Services Expansion
HCA Las Palmas Del Sol / This project will expand the availability of the Women’s Service Resource Centers and streamline processes within those centers, such as training current staff to be able to provide laboratory services in existing resource centers, while looking at the option of hiring a part-time phlebotomist. It would also encompass expanding hours to include Saturdays and community-based awareness and education opportunities.
094109802.1.3
Develop Diabetes Management Registry
Project Replacement
HCA Las Palmas Del Sol / HCA Las Palmas Del Sol will establish a chronic disease registry for patients with diabetes, so that their care can be tracked and managed within the local community. We will investigate the need to track and manage the large population with pre-diabetes. The registry, CDEMS, is used by community health centers, primary care practices, rural clinics, hospitals, and quality improvement projects across the United States and in Canada, India, Haiti, and South Africa.
094109802.1.4
Psychiatric Telemedicine
HCA Las Palmas Del Sol / Expand coverage through the use of a contracted vendor to provide for the evaluation of acute behavioral health patients in the Emergency Departments. A tele-psychiatric consultation could potentially have a turn-around disposition time of about an hour. The availability of psychiatric consultation in the ED through the tele-psychiatry model would provide immediate access to psychiatric services currently not available to the patient, provide needed guidance to the ED physicians, and facilitate the management of psychiatric patients through the ED.
094109802.1.5
Expand Specialty Care
HCA Las Palmas Del Sol
REPLACEMENT PROJECT FOR DELETED 094109802.2.2 / LPDS will perform and implement a community needs assessment to determine specialties that are underserved at LPDS. LPDS will initiate recruitment of two specialists and staff as needed and formation or expansion of two specialty clinics to better meet the needs of the El Paso community. LPDS will begin expanding specialty provider clinic hours to increase the availability of specialist services.
130601104.1.1
Expand Primary Care Access
Providence Memorial Hospital / This project will expand hours of coverage, locations, and staffing of Urgent Care Centers to ensure the Medicaid and uninsured patient population has access to the appropriate venue for care. Increased access to primary care will help address a substantial need in the community for increased access to primary care. This will promote the appropriate level of care in the appropriate setting.
130601104.1.2
Enhance Interpretation Services and Culturally Competent Care
Providence Memorial Hospital / This project will improve the cultural competency of the staff and competency in assessment of health literacy to improve effective communication amongst Tenet’s health care providers.
130601104.1.3
Expand Specialty Care Capacity
Providence Memorial Hospital / This project will entail the performance and implementation of a community needs assessment and identification of the formation of a specialty clinic based on the needs of the community.
196829901.1.1
Expand Primary Care Access
Sierra Providence East Medical Center / This project will expand hours of coverage, locations, and staffing of Urgent Care Centers to ensure the Medicaid and uninsured patient population has access to the appropriate venue for care. Increased access to primary care will help address a substantial need in the community for increased access to primary care. This will promote the appropriate level of care in the appropriate setting.
196829901.1.2
Enhance Interpretation Services and Culturally Competent Care
Sierra Providence East Medical Center / This project will improve the cultural competency of the staff and competency in assessment of health literacy to improve effective communication amongst Tenet’s health care providers.
196829901.1.3
Expand Specialty Care Capacity
Sierra Providence East Medical Center / This project will entail the performance and implementation of a community needs assessment and identification of the formation of a specialty clinic based on the needs of the community.
084597603.1.1
A Proposal to Increase Access to Ocular care to an Underserved Population
TEXAS TECH HS CTR FAMILY MED / This project will address the Region’s inability to meet the ocular care needs of its patients, particularly the indigent and Medicaid populations. The project will recruit four additional ocular care providers (two ophthalmologists and two additional therapeutic optometrists) along with the required support personnel, and develop an electronic referral system linking primary care to the ophthalmology providers to facilitate referrals.
084597603.1.2
A proposal to establish an enterprise wide Chronic Disease Management Registry
TEXAS TECH HS CTR FAMILY MED / This project will develop the resources and infrastructure to design, build, and maintain patient registries as an enterprise priority available as a resource to support any Department that identifies a need. By developing these resources centrally, we can be assured that disease conditions treated by multiple departments are recorded in a uniform manner for comparison and reporting
The Texas Tech Physicians of El Paso is a 225 member provider group serving the PLFSOM.
084597603.1.3
A Proposal to Expand Neurology Care to a Multi-site, Geographically Distributed Ambulatory Neurology Network
TEXAS TECH HS CTR FAMILY MED / The overall goal of this project is to address a critical lack of access to neurology providers in our region and to address the geographic distribution of these providers to further improve access.
084597603.1.4
The Expansion and Enhancement of Comprehensive Breast Care Services to an Indigent and Underserved Population in the University Breast Care Center (UBCC)
TEXAS TECH HS CTR FAMILY MED / The University Breast Care Center began operation in 1994 providing comprehensive breast care for the Region’s medically indigent women with breast disease. Currently twenty-five (25%) of patients seen there have no third party insurance, and the majority of the remainder have only Medicaid. Collectively, the Center provides care for approximately 1/3 of the women in the El Paso area with a new diagnosis of breast cancer, and is the primary provider of care to women with breast disease who lack health insurance.
084597603.1.5
Expanding access to surgical services to a Hispanic population
TEXAS TECH HS CTR FAMILY MED / This project will address a critical shortage of surgical providers in our region and to address the geographic distribution of these providers via three strategies: 1) recruit surgeons and surgical physician extenders to the region; 2) expand the number of sites offering outpatient general surgery clinic services, and 3) streamline the referral process from primary care providers to the surgical program by creating and implementing an electronic referral system.
084597603.1.6
Expansion of Pediatric primary care by providing Health Periodicity Exams in conjunction with a visit to an acute care walk in clinic
TEXAS TECH HS CTR FAMILY MED / The goal of this project is to increase the number of children who receive appropriate health periodicity exams as defined by the American Academy of Pediatrics Bright Futures Recommendations and are current in their immunization status.
084597603.1.7
Increased Access to Minimally Invasive Surgical (MIS) Services For Low Income and Hispanic Patients
TEXAS TECH HS CTR FAMILY MED / The overall goal of this project is to increase the availability of minimally invasive surgical techniques to a Hispanic and low income population by leveraging our existing faculty resources to develop an accredited two year fellowship program in Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS).
084597603.1.8 Pass 2
Expand Specialty Care: A proposal to expand a Child Psychiatry Fellowship Program
TEXAS TECH HS CTR FAMILY MED / The overall goal of this project is to address a critical lack of behavioral health providers in our region. We propose to accomplish this through the expansion of an existing 2 year child fellowship program from one fellow per year to two fellows per year.
127376505 1.1
Extended Observation Unit
Emergence Health Network / EHN is proposing to develop psychiatric emergency services as an alternative to inappropriate systems of care (i.e., jail, local hospitals, and emergency departments). The proposed project to address this need is an Extended Observation Unit (“EOU”).
127376505 1.2
Expand Behavioral Health Providers
Emergence Health Network / EHN is proposing to expand the capacity and access to behavioral health care by increasing the number of behavioral health providers in the community.
127376505 1.3
Crisis Stabilization for IDD Population
Emergence Health Network / EHN is proposing to develop a crisis stabilization unit for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (“IDD”) and/or co-occurring serious and persistent mental illness (SPMI). EHN will explore the development of an evidenced-based long-term crisis intervention and stabilization services model, START: Systematic, Therapeutic, Assessment, Respite, and Treatment.
065086301.1.1
Border Public Health Interest Group
City of El Paso Department of Public Health / The City of El Paso Department of Public Health proposes a three academic institution collaborative research interest group which will collect and analyze REAL data to describe regional/local health problems and prescribe appropriate policy/program interventions.
065086301.1.2
El Paso Community Health Atlas
City of El Paso Department of Public Health / Appropriate delivery of care and health care planning requires the measurement of biomarkers as a way to (1)identifyrisk factors for certain conditions; (2) track trends in prevalence over time ;( 3) identifyhealth care needs in populationgroupsand areas; (4) prioritizeprograms / strategiesto meet needs; and (5) evaluate the impact of programs/interventions, i.e., health promotion and service delivery interventions. In general, this has not been done in the United States as a pillar of our public healthinitiatives. To draw a complete and accurate picture of health status of El Pasoans, data are needed from health system users and non-users, i.e., those within and outside the health care system.
065086301.1.3
Expansion of Oral Health Services
City of El Paso Department of Public Health / The City of El Paso Department of Public Health proposes to expand access to dental care for low income children in the El Paso area by acquiring, outfitting, staffing, and deploying a mobile dental clinic to underserved areas/populations outside of the current catchment area of the department’s fixed-site Rawlings Dental Clinic.
065086301.1.4
Enhance Improvement Capacity Through Technology
City of El Paso Department of Public Health / To improve the health of El Paso area residents and visitors, this project will enhance dispatch performance and reporting to decrease dispatch times. This will ensure the public receives prompt Emergency Medical Care for the region. These new response times will allow for improvements to be tracked and result in a positive patient outcome.
065086301.1.5 Pass 2
Implement data sharing agreements to aid in health disparity evaluation
City of El Paso Department of Public Health / The aim of this project is to expand collection and integration of regionally relevant healthcare data for border care not presently gather by the Texas Health Information Exchange. This project is designed to gather and integrate patient centered data for regional comparative effectiveness research in define populations living in our region
138951211.2.1
The Salvation Army, Redshield Health A Holistic Wellness Program for the Homeless
University Medical Center of El Paso (UMC) / The Salvation Army’s health and wellness program will be designed to provide primary and preventive healthcare to residents living at the shelter by contracting with and placing VNA nurses in the shelter. This project will also encompass a wellness program that will provide for nutritious food, education, and fitness/wellness for the families in the shelter. The focus with the typical resident here will include chronic conditions, specifically (but not limited to) diabetes and obesity.
138951211.2.2
Rescue Mission / VNA Shelter Program for the Homeless
University Medical Center of El Paso (UMC) / The Rescue Mission’s Nursing Program will be designed to provide primary and preventive healthcare to residents living at the Rescue Mission, a homeless shelter in El Paso. This program also delivers education and support to empower them to gain control of their lives through disease management, medication compliance, appropriate diet and nutrition, and lifestyle changes. VNA will provide the nursing and support services for the Rescue Mission’s residents to prevent them from using the County Hospital or other EDs for their primary care or for non-emergent care needs. The Shelter will provide the space and VNA will provide the nursing and support staff where we will be able to monitor the chronic health conditions of those residing at the shelter.
138951211.2.3
Discharge Facilitation/Navigation To High-Risk Patients
University Medical Center of El Paso (UMC) / This project will identify high-risk patients based on chronic conditions and history of readmissions, and create/amend staff positions to facilitate the discharge of these patients to include RNs, physicians, case managers, social workers, and other appropriate practitioners in the hospital setting. The project will specifically target patients with diabetes, renal disease, history of stroke, obesity, and other populations with a history of readmissions.