Overview

In May 2010, the Greater New Orleans area was selected to serve as a pilot community for the eventual wide-scale use of health information technology through the HHS Office of the Coordinator for Health Information Technology’s Beacon Community Program.  The $13,525,434 American Recovery Act grant was awarded to the Greater New Orleans area through a collaborative of public and private health care systems convened by the Louisiana Public Health Institute (LPHI). The Crescent City Beacon Community (CCBC) initiative seeks to achieve meaningful and measurable improvements in healthcare quality, safety and efficiency in the Greater New Orleans area, while helping lay the groundwork for an emerging health IT industry that is expected to support new job creation opportunities across the region.  The Greater New Orleans area is one of only 17 communities across the country chosen for this honor.

Vision/Mission

The vision of the CCBC initiative is to establish an accountable and efficient healthcare system that provides high quality, coordinated care to patients. The transformative changes envisioned through CCBC activities will use health information technology to enable healthcare delivery improvements in partnership with patients and providers.

Goals

Currently, the CCBC initiative is focused on improving the performance and quality of healthcare to reduce the burden of diabetes and cardiovascular disease by accomplishing the following goals:

• Improved quality of care at the population level in measurable ways
• Implementation of HIT as the enabler for efficiency and scalability
• Creation of community-level standards of care for chronic disease management
• Enhancement of linkages across health systems and other state and federal Qauality Improvement (QI) and HIT activities 

Objectives

CCBC partners have identified the following strategic, community-wide intervention objectives:

• Chronic Care Management includes a core set of interventions focused at the population-level within patient-centered medical homes. This initiative uses risk stratification, population-based registries and clinical decision support systems in electronic medical records, and establishes care management standards and protocols to deliver effective, evidence-based care for patients with diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
• Transitions of Care is focused on improved care coordination across the health care delivery system to help ensure seamless transition of patients between primary care, specialty care and hospital-based settings. Examples include electronic notification of emergency department visits to primary care physicians and evidence-based specialty e-referral systems.
• Mobile Health Technology will use text messaging to provide the public with personalized education, diabetes risk assessments and follow-up messages.
• CCBC is also collaborating with the Regional Extension Center and Louisiana Health Information Exchange programs to support other state and national level efforts focused on improving quality of care for the Greater New Orleans area.

Partners

Current CCBC partners in the Greater New Orleans area include:

• On behalf of community health clinics: Daughters of Charity Services of New Orleans, Tulane Community Health Centers, NO/AIDS Task Force
• Children’s Hospital & Touro Infirmary
• Interim LSU Hospital
• Louisiana Department of Health & Hospitals
• Louisiana Public Health Institute
• Ochsner Health Systems
• Tulane Medical Center

Governance

The governance structure of the CCBC initiative includes a steering committee responsible for oversight and strategic direction. CCBC steering committee membership is comprised of leadership from the Louisiana Department of Health & Hospitals, City of New Orleans Health Department, BlueCross BlueShield of Louisiana and the Louisiana Public Health Institute. An operating board with representation from partner institutions is involved in the implementation and monitoring of the CCBC initiative. Workgroups around specific types of interventions bring together partners for discussion and recommendation-making related to the design, implementation and evaluation of the interventions within the context of targeted clinical settings. CCBC project teams work closely with the Office of National Coordinator for HIT and other Beacon Communities across the country to inform and share best practices for population health improvement strategies.

For more information, visit www.crescentcitybeacon.org or contact:

Kristin Lyman, JD, MHA
Project Manager
Crescent City Beacon Community
Louisiana Public Health Institute (LPHI)
(504) 872-0792
klyman@lphi.org