Friday, January 17, 2025
1/17/2025
Through HRSA’s Technology-enabled Collaborative Learning Program (TCLP), Moses/Weitzman Health System, Inc. (MWHS) and its Weitzman Institute (WI) propose a Primary Care Telementoring: Expanding Specialty Access for Underserved Populations Nationally project to achieve TCLP’s purpose of improving retention of health care providers in medically underserved areas and increasing access to health care services. Leveraging its existing Project ECHO infrastructure, education expertise, partnerships, and results from its needs assessment for this application, WI will train primary care providers, behavioral health providers, and other care team members in health professional shortage areas, rural areas, and medically underserved areas in health center partner sites in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, and North Carolina over the five-year project. WI will also recruit providers and care team members from additional Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs)/safety net sites across the country. Through the TCLP, WI will build on its existing HRSA Telehealth Technology-Enabled Learning Program (TTELP) grant activities in rural FQHCs and expand its outreach to a broader audience of providers and care team members in medically underserved communities. Based on a review of poor health indicators in the service areas of its partner sites, WI noted chronic diseases, with diabetes and obesity being highly prevalent, as well as barriers in access to specialty care and high maternal morbidity and mortality risk factors. In response, WI’s TCLP project will concentrate on three of nine focus areas identified by HRSA. WI will design, implement, and evaluate the two Project ECHO programs: 1) Chronic Diseases and Conditions, combined with specialty care, with Year 1 on diabetes and weight management 2) Prenatal and Maternal Health Faculty have been recruited for both ECHOs. WI will work closely with them to ensure content is culturally responsive to addre ss disparities experienced by patient populations in FQHCs/safety net sites. Over the five-year project, WI will deliver 86 sessions for the Chronic Diseases and Conditions ECHO (Year 1 on diabetes and weight management; Years 2-5 topics based on input from target communities, ECHO participants, Advisory Council, HRSA, and emerging needs) for a total of 375 participants. WI will also deliver 86 sessions for the Prenatal and Maternal Health ECHO over the five-year project for a total of 375 participants. WI will also convene a National Primary Care for the Underserved Advisory Council, consisting of 10 representatives with leadership and/or clinical roles from partner health centers and national organizations who serve underserved primary care settings. The Advisory Council will discuss best practices, challenges, and potential solutions to address provider retention and unmet health care service needs in underserved settings and inform WI in the development, delivery, and evaluation of the two ECHOs. Through a robust evaluation plan, WI will assess progress towards goals through implementation measures (providers/care team members recruited, sessions delivered, participant attendance), learner outcomes (satisfaction, self-efficacy, changes in knowledge of participants), and service/patient outcomes (adoption of practice or program change resulting in improvement of patient outcomes). Evaluation will incorporate related clinical measures and indicators of the identified topic areas. Two specific research themes will be studied: 1) what factors influence continued and sustained attendance at the individual participant level and 2) the impact of participation on provider retention. WI will disseminate evaluation findings from the ECHO activities and two research themes through a total of 10 national conferences and three peer-reviewed publications to contribute to the evidence base of best practices in utilizing technology-enabled collaborative learning programs.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).