February 12, 2020
Uniform Data System (UDS) reporting is due by February 15th for all Federally Qualified Health Centers. This is an important deadline for for all health centers receiving funding and determines eligibility to receive HRSA’s annual Fiscal Year 2020 Quality Improvement Awards. For an overview of last year’s award categories and incentives visit HRSA’s Fiscal Year 2019 Quality Improvement Awards (QIA).
Historically HRSA has awarded health centers for their use of Health IT through the Quality Improvement Awards. OCHIN recognizes that many of our network members are working to submit the final pieces of this data—to assist, we recommend paying special attention to Appendix D, Appendix E, and Appendix F.
Below are a few tips for using these sections to maximize your organization’s Quality Improvement Award funding in 2020.
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OCHIN Epic provides the ability to exchange clinical data with any Epic organization in the country through Care Everywhere. OCHIN Epic also provides the ability to exchange clinical data with any non-Epic organization live on Carequality (hospitals, specialty offices, emergency departments, primary care providers, etc.). Your partners connected through these methods can retrieve your patients’ data without action from your organization.
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Closed-loop referrals are available with Epic organizations through Care Everywhere Referrals Management (CERM).
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OCHIN Epic provides the capability to send prescriptions to the pharmacy electronically. Many providers attesting for Promoting Interoperability/Meaningful Use/Merit-based Incentive Payment System are using this functionality.
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OCHIN Epic provides robust clinical decision support. Health Maintenance provides reminders for many screenings, as well as standard pediatric and adult immunizations. The system also provides drug-drug and drug-allergy alerts.
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When answering questions about engaging patients through health IT, think about OCHIN Epic MyChart. If providers in your organization are reporting for Promoting Interoperability/Meaningful Use/Merit-based Incentive Payment System they may be using patient portals and/or secure messaging. If your organization has any virtual care models, those may also be worth noting.
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When thinking about using health IT outside of direct patient care, consider whether you use Healthy Planet to monitor clinical quality measures, if there is activity driven by the monthly summary reports that come from OCHIN (Clinical Quality, Revenue Cycle, MyChart), or if you are using Epic signal data to address provider efficiency and/or burden.
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OCHIN Epic has Accountable Health Communities and PRAPARE social determinant of health screening tools available. If you are using these, be sure to account for them.
HRSA has provided a number of resources to support successful UDS reporting, including the following:
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Strategies for Success UDS Reporting presentation and webinar
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Reporting UDS Clinical Tables to Support Quality Improvement
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Reporting UDS Financial and Operational Tables and Using Comparison Performance Metrics
If you have any questions, please contact Arielle Goranson, Innovation Advisor at OCHIN: goransona@ochin.org.
