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I want to thank the 230-plus participants in the discussion, which was a  largely-technical update and brainstorming session titled “Project Unify (Part 1): Advancing Progress on Building Cross-Domain Interoperability across Health and Human Services.” Please join us for Part II, which will begin at noon Eastern this coming Friday, May 29. 
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“Privacy is a religion,” and the way many people think about it is tied to their core beliefs. So not everyone is going to be convinced that the data we’re asking them to share is going to actually remain private, but we can be governed by principles and policies that help people feel more comfortable about moving forward while addressing their very real concerns. And, necessarily, we should do so while continuing to be as transparent as possible.
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The intent of both SOCI’s new paper and of the InCK initiative’s intent is basically the same, and it’s an important one: to provide practical guidance, tools and models that can be leveraged, replicated and improved over time to address the enormous and growing need for coordinated care across our nation.
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The webinar was titled “Getting Evidence into Practice: Lessons from the Opioid Crisis,” and the three AHRQ presenters were Medical Officer Elisabeth Uphoff Kato, Staff Fellow Roland Gamache and Program Officer Suchitra Iyer. 400 attendees from health, healthcare, social services and other public and private sectors and systems attended – a record high for our weekly webinar series!
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Over time, the initiatives discussed during the webinar will strengthen the nation’s capacity to share information and use it for data-driven decision-making to improve health outcomes, equity and operational effectiveness. Indeed, once these efforts are operational, they should  help us to navigate many current challenges and to build technical resilience to address the effects of COVID-19 and other future emergencies. 
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We All WIN With These Measures and Insights

One particularly important insight that Soma shared was this: “Out of the domains that relate to the well-being of people, places, and equity – it turned out that asking people how they felt about their own lives proved to be most important.” That’s an interesting point because it relates to the opportunities that individuals have in areas that significantly impact their lives, such as jobs, housing, and education.
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By Adam Pertman

Senior Consultant, Stewards of Change Institute

The coronavirus crisis has put children in foster care – and those who need to be there – at serious risk in numerous, unnerving ways. To date, however, they and their families have barely been mentioned as potential victims of the pandemic, and the federal government has done too little to help them. That has to change as quickly as possible, either with targeted resources in the next economic stimulus bill or in separate legislation

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As daily life changes for everyone, we are all learning how to function in different, more-flexible ways. It is a learning exercise that feels – and often is – both individual and isolating. There’s an additional way to look at the lessons of the coronavirus crisis, however, and the title of last Friday’s (3/27/20) NIC webinar/discussion describes it: “Collaborating to Deal with Today – While Preparing for Tomorrow.”
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The situation in the United States is unique because of the wall that exists between health and social policy. The former is consuming close to 18 percent of U.S. GDP and, despite its terrible shortcomings, is a global symbol of medical prowess and innovation. Meanwhile, the latter is underfunded and underserviced as we can clearly see – unfortunately – during the current coronavirus crisis.
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While we have made progress through new technology and federal rules toward making a national health information exchange system a reality, just about everyone who works in this space knows we have “miles to go before we sleep”.   There are indeed local HIE’s that are quite successful, but few major operational state HIE’s and not a true national HIE system the likes of which we wished for when this work started.  Now Niam Yaraghi writes in an article published by the Brookings Institution that

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The coronavirus pandemic was front-and-center, of course, but the National Interoperability Collaborative (NIC) also had another broad, long-term objective in mind when it started planning this convening months ago, when the words “worst public health crisis in modern US history” referred to the opioid epidemic. Today, NIC’s objective remains the same; that is, to create a National Policy Action Agenda by year’s end designed to improve our nation’s too-siloed health-related systems by meaningful
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The ingredients in our not-so-secret sauce include accomplished expert presenters, of course, along with a facilitation approach that keeps conversations going throughout each session. Another key is the selection of diverse topics and showcasing them in ways that clearly demonstrate the value of information-sharing and collaboration across silos, domains and disciplines.
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By Adam Pertman, a Senior Consultant to Stewards of Change Institute | President of the National Center on Adoption and Permanency

 

At the beginning of the 1900s, grim predictions punctuated the debate over women’s suffrage. Everyone in the family unit would be damaged in innumerable ways if this outrage were allowed to happen, argued the critics, some of whom went so far as to predict the end of civilization itself.

Half a century later, another historic social change was in the offing, and th

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All of us at Stewards of Change Institute are excited that we’ll be presenting our new Interoperability Mural Gallery for just the third time, after successful showings at two other major national events this year. Those were the Community Information Exchange Summit in San Diego and the Medicaid Enterprise Systems Conference in Chicago.
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Thanks to You, a One-Year Anniversary for the NIC Hub

To all of you who are already taking advantage of the various activities on the NIC Collaboration Hub, thank you again for your support, participation and inspiration. To those who haven’t yet joined our community, consider this a personal invitation to get on board. After all, we all want to reach the same destination. Join Today!
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The annual Medicaid Enterprise Systems Conference is always a great place to share ideas, learn about new initiatives and technologies, network with federal and state officials and engage with industry leaders from across the country. This year’s MESC – which took place in Chicago last week – was no exception.  I’m gratified to say that Stewards of Change Institute had the privilege to show our innovative Interoperability Mural Gallery at the event.

It was the second time we’d presented a versio

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While researchers have explored the use of administrative data in various areas (for example, identifying frequent users of emergency services), little has been published on this trend more broadly. As state leaders seek to harness data in innovative ways, what common themes, noteworthy successes, and notable challenges have the 50 states experienced across a broad cross-section of issues? To address that question, The Pew Charitable Trusts interviewed state leaders across the U.S. and reviewed
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It is important to underscore that the Playbook’s contents represent a current snapshot of our evolving knowledge on how to address the opioid crisis, while also identifying the research and evidence-gathering that still must be undertaken to make better-informed decisions. Our intent is to regularly update the Playbook – most notably its plays – as we learn about new ideas and initiatives, and we welcome comments and contributions on the NIC Hub to keep it as up-to-date as possible.  
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