high performing collaborations (NYS)

Hi Amanda,

How hard (or easy) was it to get the community partners to adopt the
standardized scannable form.  What incentives/disincentives are used?

Drobinson:

Great question.  We had a standardized form prior to the scannable form, which certainly helped.  When we made the transition to scannable forms, we included some of the community program staff in helping us to design and test the form.  We were also careful to provide training around using the form before we launched it in 2007.   One of the greatest incentives for the programs has been the fact that automated reports can be generated.  They get quarterly and yearly summaries of their activities and know that they can always contact the state staff for technical assistance in running any special queries they need for a specific proposal or grant application or other need.  It definitely wasn't a completely smooth process, but it was well worth the time and effort.  One last note:   At the state level we involved our experienced program staff but also our evaluators, the IT staff and clinical staff from the asthma program in designing the form.  This process may have taken a bit longer, but was also well worth the effort.

Pierre:  See the answer above for an example of how our internal collaboration worked to help us develop the scannable form.

Another example of high-performing collaborations is a pilot project we conducted in Erie County, NY from 2007-2010.  The Healthy Home Environments for New Yorkers with Asthma project was a collaboration between the local Healthy Neighborhoods Program, four regional managed care plans, the state Healthy Neighborhoods Program, the NYS Asthma Control Program and the Office of Health Insurance Programs.   We involved all partners from the design-stage forward to ensure that everything about the program (from referral forms to feedback from the home visit) would work with everyone's different systems and jargon.  We also checked in with our partners regularly during the implementation phase (using quarterly surveys) to see what was working for them and where they were encountering barriers.  When we identified a successful strategy used by one program, we were able to quickly spread it to another.  Similarly, when a program let us know about challenges that they were experiencing, we were able to connect them to the larger partnership to figure out ways that others were successfully addressing similar issues.

More recently we've been engaging partners through a statewide, Healthy Homes Strategic Planning Process that we hope will bring even more opportunities for collaboration.

In the Niagara County Healthy Neighborhoods Program we have  some of the local insurance providers' Member Services and/or repiratory therapists as partners.  We now get referrals from them to provide a home health and safety check for their asthmatic clients/patients.  The public health technicians go to the home, assess and identify the in home asthma triggers that they see.  The technicians  also provide the asthmatic with publications from the EPA.  We keep track of the number of attacks the person has had, days of work or school missed because of asthma, doctor and/or emergency room visits.  In most cases our information is helpful and we see a drop in attacks, dr. visits, etc.  Sometimes a more indepth consultation takes place with the public health educator.  The health providers appreciate our efforts and they have admitted that we often find conditions that the client/patient does not mention during their consultations when speaking to them.  Oftentimes a patient will deny having pets, remodling projects, smokers in the home, etc.  We can be the eyes in the home that the health care provider does not have.  This collaboration has been successful for both the client/patient, the insurance company and our HNP.