1. Development of Nationwide Information Technology Implementation Grant- This is a multimillion dollar grant affecting several disciplines within patient safety care related to e-health transmissions. Program intent is that physicians can communicate across healthcare organizations in a secured environment. The technical model has been developed via the grant as best categorized as scaleable, open, secured, remotely hosted, hub and spoke model for clinical messages and EMR functionality. There are four care technical aspects explicitly designed into the grant via HIE environment to ensure that the functionality is delivered securely to the HIE community, wherever and whenever regardless of the number of participants utilizing same system. The grant addressed designing of software that addressed no matter how many physicians and partner organizations are successfully added to the spokes of the model, the technical model is explicitly designed to grow as the HIE grows. Security and protection of community health information is achieved on multiple levels via the program. Starting from the end user, the HIE environment provides both authentication and access controls with individual unique log ons.  Each individual user is authenticated and allowed access to only the data they have the rights to access. In addition, health information that is in transit between a spoke and a hub is encrypted using the strongest encryption that domestic and international regulations permit. Lastly, the grant addressed the data being physically stored at the hub in an encrypted format.

2. Information Technology Development e-Health - Connecting Communities - The grant addressed seed funding and support for a collaborating set of communities to implement health information exchange and also provide a learning community network for same funded communities. The grant supported models to design business, technology and evaluation models to best ensure that the short and long term goals established for the proposed effort were achieved in a timely and cost effective manner and that the impact was carefully examined through application of a rigorous evaluation. The grant was based on a three year pilot test of nationally recognized modalities that exhibited the necessary experience, technology and depth of collected data to support implementing the proposed expansion and enhancement of an existing system. Goals for improvement in clinical outcome are to be achieved through the deployment of technology based products and services that deliver physician identified services such as:

* easier physician ordering
* ability to quickly assess drug interaction
* system to view normalized laboratory values
* diagnostic reporting
* e-mail combinations with other community care providers and patients
* electronic health records
* purchase of medical and office supplies
* quality data exchange among health providers
* quicker and more reliable processing of claims
* access to patient demographics

3. Community Outreach Program Addressing HIV Aids Treatment - A collaborative project involving several healthcare facilities. The grant provides funding for a community hospital providing HIV AIDS health care treatment services for people with HIV by providing service to low income and uninsured/underinsured patients. Funding derived from the grant provided resources for the establishment of a comprehensive care clinic and the need to address the number of patients being cared for and to expand services offered on-site to HIV/AIDS patients. The major objectives of the funded project are as follows:

* expansion of the CCC clinic time to three sessions per patient per week over a three year period
* add an additional physician to provide medical care and address all expenses
* addition of a full time social worker to address identified barriers to patient care
* provide primary care services to 450 HIV positive patients
* improve follow up to specialty referrals and diagnostic testing partner
* arranging dental referrals for all clinical patients who need them
* provide on-site nutritional counseling for at least six patients/week
* ensure adequate drug/alcohol counseling through established referral system
* provide on-site patient education for all HIV infected patients
* increase primary care physician awareness of CCC services

The grant also funds a needs assessment covering HIV Seroprevalence and Surrogate markers.

4. Pediatric Emergency Room Expansion Grants - The grant addressed funding for the creation of a combined pediatric emergency/inpatient unit within the hospital to address urgent medical conditions and acute emergencies of children within the community. Children are at a higher risk for death and permanent crippling sequelae if certain conditions are not recognized and treated properly, the grant supports the theory when children are treated appropriately and promptly, they tend to recover fully, quickly and completely. The grant moves within the format that since children are in the formative period of their lives, emotional trauma can be as debilitating as physical trauma with life long effects. Support for the theory that health care professionals believe that emotional scarring can be avoided relative to hospital experiences if proper attention is given to making the environment sensitive to interactions with children and supporting this thesis with discernible data through case management. The theme of the grant follows the line that children depend on their community for direct health care, it gives supportive credence to the assessment that although a hospital experience may be brief compared to other health care experiences (school, family, ambulatory settings) it remains a highly significant experience in the child's and family's life. Children do not have the means or the influence to obtain services, therefore they are totally dependent on adults to serve as their advocates and benefactors to receive care. The grant recognized the particulars in order to deliver high quality health care services to children especially those requiring hospital based services, these unique needs must be recognized, respected and met. In order to provide a high quality continuum of specialized pediatric care in a community hospital setting, the hospital proposed and was funded for the creation of a combined pediatric emergency/inpatient unit within the hospital. Care will be provided by pediatric specialists trained to respond to urgent medical conditions and acute emergencies in an environment that is sensitive to the special needs of children and their families. The unit and its services will be available to any child in the community requiring hospital based services with the majority cared for on-site, however, the grant supported training for staff to provide competent stabilization and arrangement of transportation, costs for the more critically ill children to local tertiary care hospitals. The grant also underwrote the expense of renovations needed to create this unit.

5. Diabetes Outreach Program - Collaborative Project. The grant supports pilot tests and evaluation criterion of an innovative health education community partnership addressing diabetes education and outreach. The project is culturally relevant, linguistically appropriate and literacy correct for the intended target population. Funds from the foundation were used for salaries of the director, support staff and appropriate materials development. The grant's awarded funding addressed several of the foundation's mission statements such as:

* improving diabetic knowledge through the use of an established best practice health education program
* development of materials which promote culturally and linguistically appropriate care for a specific population
* improvement and dissemination of health related information to under served populations 
* a successful history of collaborations was demonstrated between community organizations and the hospital to produce positive health outcomes for individuals and communities

 

6. Department of Education Title III Strengthening Institutions Grant - This is a multiyear grant for over $1.5M to help institutions of higher education to become self sufficient and expand their capacity to serve low income students by providing funds to improve and strengthen the academic quality, institutional management and fiscal stability of educational institutions. The funds were used for planning, faculty endowment and for the establishment of endowment funds. Projects supported were construction and maintenance, and needed student services services.