Dear friends and supporters of PCIC:
We wanted to share with you our news as we conclude Phase I. The project is moving into Phase II thanks to YOU, our collaborators, stakeholders and funders.
We have built a coalition of stakeholders and are beginning to identify Harris County Super-users, and obtain data to run an overlap analysis and identify our first cohort of 15 patients. This will allow us to develop a care coordination intervention system to help decrease super-utilization and cost, improve outcomes, and increase quality of life. Our stakeholders, so far, include : City of Houston (COH), Harris Health System (HHS), Harris County Jail (HCJ), Healthcare for the Homeless-Houston (HHH), Houston Recovery Center (HRC), Memorial Hermann Health System (MHHS), Mental Health and The Harris Center for Mental Health and IDD (formerly Mental Health & Mental Retardation Authority of Harris County) MHMRA and, Greater Houston Healthconnect (GHH).
As part of their commitment to this program, the COH, HCJ, HHS, and MHMRA have agreed to dedicate a full-time employee for 6 - 12 months to the project. The COH has identified Captain Karen DuPont from the Houston Fire Department, who has joined our team full of energy and eagerness to start. MHMRA will dedicate an RN to the project, we are in the process interviewing candidates and we hope to be able to have someone soon on board. HCJ and HHS are reviewing their internal pool of candidates to identify Case Managers that would best fit the need of the program. WE HAVE STARTED THE RECRUITENT AND SELECTION PHASE!!
We have established relationship with UHD School of Social Work, and UT School of Nursing to have students do their practicum and field work with us.
We have an IT platform with dashboards, a tracking mechanism with a mobile record system to report individual patient progress, as well as providing provider and system reports on Super-user utilization.
We have also developed a business model for long term sustainability for the uninsured population. We are in the process of developing a business model for the insured population that will include the participation of Medical Care Organizations (MCO).
We have APPLIED for Phase II funding and are thrilled to inform you that our grant to the Cullen Trust for Healthcare has been approved! We would like to thank their Board of Trustees for their support and confidence in us. We are waiting to hear from other foundations.
We would like to thank each one of you for your support and guidance through this first Phase, we would not be where we are today without you. We look forward to keep on working with you to develop a comprehensive and successful program for the Super Utilizers of our community.
Many thanks,
David Buck and Nathalie Folch
