Client News: Contra Costa Awarded $498,524 from Affordable Care Act for School-Based Health Clinics

Source: Contra Costa Regional Medical Center

Contra Costa County will receive nearly half a million dollars to help improve the health of children with school-based health clinics thanks to the Affordable Care Act.

The grant was one of 278 awarded to school-based health center programs to help expand care to students nationwide by the federal Department of Health and Human Services, which made the announcement today. Contra Costa Health Services, the Contra Costa County health system, received $498,524 to fund two additional school-based mobile health clinics. The funding was made possible under the 2009 Affordable Care Act that was co-authored by Congressman George Miller and strongly supported by Congressman John Garamendi and other House Democrats.

"This is yet more evidence of the positive effects for our community from the Affordable Care Act. Once again, we see this law working to improve the health of our community, despite attacks on the law from Washington Republicans," Miller said of the announcement. "Contra Costa Health Services deserves the most sincere congratulations on winning this award today. Their work in our community has a huge impact on so many lives and I look forward to seeing the health clinics in action."

The grant will make it possible for Contra Costa Health Services to provide health services to an additional 1,950 students annually with the two new 44-foot-long mobile clinics, said Public Health Clinic Services Director Sue Crosby. That means a total 5,000 children in Contra Costa will receive care each year through six mobile clinics serving schools throughout the county. The new clinics should be in service within the next year.

"We are so pleased to receive this funding for these vital resources that help us provide quick, affordable, safe and convenient health services to children who might not otherwise receive the care they need to be healthy and to be able to go to school," Crosby said.

School-based health centers improve the overall health and wellness of all children through health screenings, health promotion and disease prevention activities and enable children with acute or chronic illnesses to attend school. This method of providing health care has been proven to help keep children healthy, said Garamendi, who was California's Insurance Commissioner and Lieutenant Governor.

"Education and health together constitute two essential building blocks for happy, fulfilling lives and they help our children compete in the global market for jobs- to Make It In America," Garamendi said. "I applaud the Contra Costa County Health Services Department for securing the money for this valuable investment."

To learn more about the Affordable Care Act, visit http://www.healthcare.gov/. To learn more about HRSA's School-Based Health Center Capital Program, visit http://www.hrsa.gov/ourstories/schoolhealthcenters/ For more information on Contra Costa Health Services, visit http://cchealth.org/

Client News: New Health Center Breaks Ground in West Contra Costa County

What: Ground breaking for new state-of-the-art Health Center

Where: 13601 San Pablo Avenue (North of Vale Road), San Pablo

Who: Congressman George Miller; County Supervisor John Gioia; County Health Services Director Dr. William Walker; State Senator Loni Hancock; State Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner; San Pablo Vice Mayor Cecilia Valdez; Construction & Building Trade CEO Greg Feere; Board members from the West Contra Costa Healthcare District & Doctors Medical Center Governing Body; elected officials from the cities of San Pablo and Richmond

When: Friday, May 20, 2011; 11—11:30 a.m.

San Pablo, Calif. — After years of planning and searching for a new site, Contra Costa County is officially breaking ground to celebrate the construction of a new West Contra Costa County Health Center in San Pablo.

"West County residents deserve a health center we can be proud of," said County Supervisor John Gioia who has worked on building a new center for more than a decade. "The new health center will allow the County to improve access to high quality healthcare services in partnership with other healthcare providers in West County."

The total project cost is estimated at $45 million. Congressman George Miller secured $12 million for the project from ARRA Grants -- American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The balance is financed through a 30-year bond issuance. The new 53,000 square foot, 2-level state-of-the-art health center will also be LEED Certified — a building standard for green construction, maintenance, and operations and is considered to have less impact on the environment.

The new facility will replace the aging Richmond Health Center, which was built more than 40 years ago in the City of Richmond. The current health center sees more than 7000 patients a month and offers 53 different services to patients including cardiology and pediatric services. However, the building has exceeded its useful life and is the only one among the eight health centers operated by Contra Costa Health Services never to have been replaced, said CCHS Director Dr. William Walker.

"This new health center will help us better serve West County residents, increasing the number of people we can serve and improving access to care," Dr. Walker said. "We'll continue to provide primary and specialty care at the new facility, along with well-baby visits, immunizations and other critical services."

Project construction is expected to be completed in July of 2012 and is scheduled to be operational and occupied by September of 2012. To hear a podcast by Dr. Walker about the groundbreaking, visit: http://www.blogger.com/topics/podcast/2011_05_west_county_health_center.php

Note to reporters and editors:
The construction site will be open to news agencies by 10 a.m. on 5/20 for photography and videography.

West County Health Center page

Client News: Partnership Targets Improved Health Care

Source: Martinez News-Gazette

By: Galen Kusic

Over a 150 people gathered at Contra Costa Regional Medical Center on Friday for the launch of the national Partnership for Patients initiative.

The Obama Administration’s Partnership for Patients: Better Care, Lower Costs, is a new public-private partnership, funded by the Affordable Care Act, that hopes to improve the quality, safety and affordability of health care for Americans.

The goal of the partnership is to not only lower costs and improve care, but to bring together leaders of major hospitals, employers, health plans, physicians, nurses and patient advocates along with state and federal governments to make every hospital stay better for patients.

Congressman George Miller (D-Martinez) addressed the imperative need for health care reform in America, and highlighted the positive impacts of the new initiative’s ability to increase the quality of care in the nation. 

Over 1,300 hospitals, as well as physicians and nurses groups, consumer groups, and employers have pledged their commitment to the new initiative. The Contra Costa Regional Medical Center’s event in Martinez was one of more than a dozen taking place across the nation.

”The president realizes we have to work at the state, regional and local levels to make an impact,” said Obama appointee, Herb Schultz, Regional Director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Region IX. “We have changed the lives of men, women and children, and will move forward with implementation.”

The initiative is expected to help save 60,000 lives by stopping millions of preventable injuries and complications in patient care over the next three years, saving up to $35 billion in the process. Of that $35 billion, $10 billion would be for Medicare. 

Spanning the next ten years, it could save $50 billion in Medicare costs, and billions more in Medicaid savings. 

”Real benefits are getting to real people,” said Schultz. “It’s going to take all of us working with employers, labor unions and consumers to make this work. Many of you have worked your entire lives to get affordable health care.”

Joseph McCannon, Senior Advisor to the Administrator of Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, stressed the importance of the initiative for all Americans.

”Between 44-96,000 patients die each year due to medical errors,” he said. “We are using reducible efforts to address this very serious problem.”

McCannon informed the crowd that since 2006, only one patient has had a fall in Contra Costa Medical Center. In the last 5-6 years the hospital has had a 97 percent accuracy rate in providing the correct medication to patients, an astonishing track record of excellent care he said.

One pharmacist spoke about how critical it is for pharmacists to work with nurses to decrease medication errors – by taking time out to go over each individual patient’s medication, it can greatly reduce the risk of giving patients the wrong medication.

Terry Leach, Manager of Health Policy for the UC system spoke with optimism about the new initiative and what it means to the UC medical system.

”I’m thrilled to be working with Contra Costa,” she said.

John Kincaid, a Central Valley patient expressed how he was impressed by recent improvements and reforms of late.

”This hospital (Contra Costa) is like mine too,” he said. “They are doing a great job, and they listen to me.”

The two main goals of the Partnership include keeping patients from getting sicker by decreasing hospital-acquired conditions by 40 percent from 2010, which would mean 1.8 million fewer injuries to patients.

The other would be to help patients heal without complication. By the end of 2013, hospital readmissions would be reduced by 20 percent compared to 2010. This in turn would mean 1.6 million patients would recover from illness without suffering a preventable complication.

To learn more about Partnership for Patients, click here. 

Press Release: Contra Costa Regional Medical Center Implements Unibased ForSite2020® Surgery Management System

Chesterfield, MO., June 2, 2010: Contra Costa Regional Medical Center (CCRMC) in Martinez, CA has successfully implemented the Unibased ForSite2020 Surgery Management software solution. CRMC converted from a Mediware surgery management system using Unibased automatic conversion software. The new system will help Contra Costa Regional Medical Center improve its operating room productivity and efficiency as well as help improve patient safety. ForSite2020 Surgery Management will be interfaced to both Keane for ADT and charges and to Meditech for materials management to insure continuity of data collection, transmission, dissemination and integrity throughout CCRMC.

The Unibased solution will enable CCRMC staff to capture all relevant clinical and administrative data automatically as patients enter and pass through the intraoperative environment of the hospital. The system is designed to help the hospital optimize the use of nursing staff, supplies and operating room schedules as well as the clinical care process.

ForSite Analytics, the Unibased advanced analytics/dashboard tool, will allow performance over time to be measured and managed, thus contributing to CCRMC’s advances in providing best practice cost effectively.

“We’re delighted with what this solution will do for Contra Costa Regional Medical Center. We are particularly happy with being the first California hospital to install the Unibased ForSite2020 Surgery Management System. We hope that the Unibased Surgery Management software will perform precisely as we expect,” said David Runt, Chief Information Officer. “Our clinical team is genuinely excited by how it will help us improve efficiency and patient safety while integrating with the other systems we have in place. Unibased has delivered on what it promised, within the timeline and cost agreed upon. Unibased is an extremely professional organization; one that delivers on all of their promises. Over the next few months we expect to see the system delivering its full potential, adding value within the organization and improving the service we provide to patients.”

ForSite2020 Surgery Management is a fully integrated software solution for the surgical continuum of care and reporting thus helping clinical staff to automate documentation of care through the entire patient pathway, helping to reduce the potential for errors. David Runt, CIO, said, “Unibased software will help us to manage resources more effectively than ever before in the most critical areas of the hospital. It makes it far easier for clinical teams to access information and manage data, and it is a clear example of how the appropriate use of information technology can help physicians improve clinical practice.”

“Every investment needs to demonstrate a strong return,” said David Runt. “The implementation has gone extremely well, and over the coming months, management, staff and patients at Contra Costa can expect to see the kind of benefits that only a specialized perioperative information management system can help bring to the surgical areas of the hospital.”

Contra Costa Regional Medical Center purchased the following ForSite2020 Surgery Management modules:
- Perioperative Charting for All Phases of Surgical Care
- Physician Access for Surgeon Office Scheduling
- Big Board/Patient Tracking
- Complete Surgery Scheduling Functionality with Pre-admission Testing
- Front-End Revenue Cycle Rules/Capabilities
- ForSite Analytics (Executive Dashboard)

Unibased software has been delivering operational efficiencies and improved communication to enhance clinician and patient experiences at hospitals for the last 24 years.

Visit Unibased on the web at www.unibased.com.

Media Contact:
Stephanie D. Speth, Marketing Manager
Phone: 314-878-6050, ext. 143
Email: speth@unibased.com

Photo of the Day - Point Reyes Beach in CA

Just posted some great pics on Facebook that were taken by Leslie Neilson, our Senior QA Analyst, of scenery from her visit to our clients at Contra Costa Regional Medical Center in California. Visit Our Facebook Page Here!

Thanks for sharing Leslie!!

Contra Costa Regional Medical Center Selects ForSite2020® periOperative Resource Management System

June 23, 2009 - Contra Costa Regional Medical Center of Martinez, CA selected ForSite2020® periOperative Resource Management System (ORMS) for use in their hospital. ORMS will replace a product no longer marketed by Mediware Information Systems (Mediware), who referred Unibased to Contra Costa, under an agreement formed in 2007.

Contra Costa is the public hospital for Contra Costa County in California. The hospital is a newly constructed facility of 164 beds, supporting more than 500,000 outpatients annually.