Reno Project Update
Nevada Senator Harry Reid was given a tour and issued a HPP card during a
recent visit to the Washoe County WIC office on April 11th.
WC WIC Program Manager Beverly Bayan met with Senator Reid and others to
discuss the benefits of the HPP project. The
senator had requested a tour of the WIC clinic and a first hand demonstration of
the HPP project during his recent visit to the District Health Department.
A proposal was submitted on March 26th to the USDA for WIC/EBT
Infrastructure funding on behalf of the Nevada and ITCN WIC Programs.
We are anticipating a positive response in early June.
Evaluators from the Urban Institute were in Reno April 24-26 for their final visit to our project. They met with all of the partners, retailers, clients and the HPP site manager. Thanks to all of our HPP Partners and clients who contributed to the visit.
Bismarck Project Update
There has been
lots of activity with Health Passport in Bismarck over the last several months.
ND WIC applied for funding to support HPP expansion and continuation for
the next two years. Head Start held
their Fall Re-enrollment April 10-12, there were lots of cards brought in, some
re-issue cards and even some new families who requested HPP cards for the first
time. Thank you Candie and Sharon
for all your data input onto the cards.
The evaluators from Urban Institute and MAXIMUS were in Bismarck April
17-19, for visits with many of the HPP users and administrators.
Site manager Bertie Bishop has had two meetings with Kaleidoscope in
Fargo about the possible use of Health Passport at their new multi-agency
facility and presented HPP to the Devils Lake Head Start Health Advisory Group.
Welcome aboard Sharon from Health Tracks, a new HPP user.
Wyoming Partner Update
We had a successful WIC launch on
March 21; the WIC staff is very enthusiastic about sharing health information
with the rest of the partners, which in turn has made clients excited about
getting the card! WIC food benefits
as well as Food Stamps benefits are on the same card, which makes things
convenient from the client’s point of view.
Christine Hardy, the local WIC program shares these positive aspects of
the project:
a. User friendly computer system
b.
Acquire immunization information through download (is less time than
entering information ourselves)
c.
Staff members are surprised with how easy it is to read/write to the HPP
card (they are learning to adjust their clinic visit to allow for this).
d.
Opportunity to participate in new and promising project with many
benefits to the clients.
Head Start
is looking to expand this fall and will add a full-day, year-round program for
32 children. The family development
specialists that provide home visits are gathering HSFIS information on their
laptops and are updating HPP cards this month.
They are piloting an exciting project that provides Head Start training
to selected in-home day care providers to improve childcare services in
Cheyenne. Participants receive a
child development accreditation certificate.
A special thank
you to all of our HPP Partners for participating in the Urban Institute
evaluation interviews.
New Head Start
HSFIS Software
Cleverex delivered the new HSFIS version 4.2 software with the Health Passport synchronization to the three HPP Head Start agencies in April. Gabrielle Josephson, Cleverex Trainer, spent two days with the Bismarck BECEP Head Start training and assisting with the use of the new integrated software during the re-enrollment of children. Staff attended the first day of training from many of the disciplines within the Head Start Agency, as well as Connie and Sharon from ND Health Tracks and Bertie Bishop from the Health Passport Project. During the course of the training many valuable tips for using HSFIS more efficiently were shared among attendees. The HPP team is currently in discussions with Cleverex to bring additional Head Start agencies together to introduce them to HSFIS and Health Passport integration.
Customer
Service Help Desk
In
order to prepare for continued support during the transitional and Phase II
stages of the HPP project, we are updating help desk support services.
The 800 # will remain the same for HPP clients, users and retailers.
Please call the help desk initially for your first line of support for
all HPP related questions. The help
desk is trained to assist you and to send out the local computer company if
needed. They will also contact the
site managers for additional assistance. Please
refer to your customer service handbook for further contact information.
A Message from Terry Williams, HPP Manager
Dear
Partners,
As all three states experience the Health Passport evaluation visits from
Urban Institute these past few weeks, the question logically came up “where do
we go from here?” I don’t have
a crystal ball, but please let me share a few thoughts on what could develop.
First, I think overall we’ll have quite a positive evaluation.
Just think about what we’ve accomplished over these last few years. With the support of WGA, three pioneering states ventured
into Health passport with 17 programs all using a common interoperable smart
card service delivery platform in which 13 of the 17 programs are actually
integrated with the basic legacy programs.
Certainly we’ve had varied levels of success within each state and
program, and with all the changes in personnel and delays in delivery of core
components, it’s you Partners and your “True Grit” that has taken this
powerful idea and created success for your staff and participants.
In the next month or two, I expect WGA to bring the three states together
with our federal partners and technical partners and technical experts to review
the evaluation preliminary findings; identify improvements in the core functions
of Health Passport to make it even more valuable to partners and participants;
and to support WGA in pursuing additional HPP functionality.
The final evaluation of our current work will be presented to the
Governors’ at their summer meeting in August.
Each state is exploring how to take the successes and lessons learned and
build upon the interests and business opportunities that are being identified
locally and within each of the three states.
North Dakota has a new Governor and meetings will be scheduled shortly.
In addition to gaining more experience with partners in Bismarck, Bertie
Bishop is talking with Health and Human Service organizations in Fargo.
Wyoming has an Agency Director retreat planned for the end of May to
address the short-term issue of maintaining the existing Laramie County
application for the period of October 2001 through June 2002, while the Agencies
make the business case to the legislature for further expansion in State FY
2003-2004. Both North Dakota and
Nevada submitted WIC grant proposals to maintain HPP and develop further
business plans to make the system more cost effective and valuable, before
further major expansion.
Perhaps there is opportunity within the three states to partner for key
core functional services such as Host Maintenance, System Processing and
Customer Service support?
Technology is not static, and even a powerful idea of participant
centered system for portable demographic and medical data and benefits on a
smart card needs to grow. Card
technology continues to improve and now a 32K card with enhanced security
features are available for approximately the price of our original card.
With these advancements discussions are underway on how can WGA
demonstrate, (and bring back to the three original states,) the Web-based
Virtual Patient Account to demonstrate through a pilot proof of principle the
use of digital signatures, open systems, interoperability between provider and
clinics and requester clinics, be scaleable and securely use the internet. As you can see, all of these concepts build upon the core
functions that we have already demonstrated through initial applications of
cards, portability, tiered access, pending update and passage of encrypted data
over the Internet to a secure host.