Mountain-Pacific to Build a New Network to Improve Rural Health Care

By Mountain-Pacific

Rural and frontier providers in Montana and Wyoming can now be part of a revolutionary health care model that will help them give better care to more people, right where they live.

As part of a new initiative funded by Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), Mountain-Pacific Quality Health is looking to connect Montana and Wyoming rural communities with an inter-professional team of regional and care coordination experts using Project ECHO® (Extension of Community Healthcare Outcomes), a model aimed at increasing access to specialty expertise, knowledge and support in underserved areas.

“This project could transform the way health care is provided to patients in Montana and Wyoming,” says Kevin Franke of Mountain-Pacific, who already works to improve care coordination in Wyoming communities. “Project ECHO® will help us virtually put consultants and experts into some of our most remote areas. Our rural and frontier providers will get access to top-notch education and best practices and be able to provide the best possible care to their patients without always having to refer them to bigger towns or health care systems.”

Multiple states and countries have implemented the Project ECHO® model to safely and effectively provide best practice care for chronic, common and complex diseases in rural and underserved areas and to monitor outcomes using online meeting technology. Providers recruited for Mountain-Pacific’s Rural/Frontier Care Transition – Project ECHO® initiative will focus on vulnerable Medicare populations and dually-enrolled beneficiaries in Medicare and Medicaid with an emphasis on:

• Multiple complex chronic conditions
• Multiple medications
• Behavioral health issues
• Socioeconomic issues

Mountain-Pacific will partner with the University of Wyoming to implement this project. The University of Wyoming Institute for Disabilities (UW WIND) is designated by the University of New Mexico ECHO Institute as a Project ECHO® Superhub, one of just four in the world.

“The University of Wyoming already has valuable experience with Project ECHO,” explains Franke, “so their oversight and expertise will be paramount in getting specialized, complex care to communities that haven’t been able to easily get that care before now.”

The Wyoming Center on Aging (WyCOA) will collaborate with UW WIND to help ensure consistency throughout the project. Montana and Wyoming’s state hospital associations, the Hospital Improvement and Innovation Networks (HIINs) awardees, will also be a part of this project. Among other contributions, the HIINs will help recruit providers and stakeholders for the Project ECHO® coalition. A broad spectrum of providers, from physicians to community-based organizations, will be recruited to participate in this initiative.

For more information about the Rural/Frontier Care Transition – Project ECHO® initiative, please contact Kevin Franke at 307-472-0543 ext 3 or by email at KFranke@mpqhf.org