Qualitative review of early experiences of off-site COVID-19 testing centers and associated considerations.

Given the predicted need for continued SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic testing, as well as the evolving availability and types of diagnostic tests, off-site COVID-19 testing centers (OSCTC) leaders need timely guidance to ensure they are meeting the needs of their unique populations. This research discusses the challenges and offers considerations for healthcare organizations and others when setting up and running OSCTCs. It also provides a springboard to engage policy makers and leaders in the healthcare community in a discussion about emergency preparedness, and how to better respond to testing needs going forward.

Health information technology: transforming chronic disease management and care transitions.

Adoption of health information technology (HIT) is a key effort in improving care delivery, reducing costs of health care, and improving the quality of health care. Evidence from electronic health record (EHR) use suggests that HIT will play a significant role in transforming primary care practices and chronic disease management. This article shows that EHRs and HIT can be used effectively to manage chronic diseases, that HIT can facilitate communication and reduce efforts related to transitions in care, and that HIT can improve patient safety by increasing the information available to providers and patients, improving disease management and safety.

An early status report on the Beacon Communities' plans for transformation via health information technology.

The Beacon Community Program is part of a federal strategy for using health information technology as a foundation to improve the nation's health care system. In particular, Beacon Communities seek to increase the quality and efficiency of health care, improve the health of individuals and communities, and inform similar initiatives in other parts of the country. Each Beacon Community has set quality, efficiency, and health-related goals, and each is deploying multiple technology-enabled interventions to achieve them. Yet achieving large-scale and sustainable health care improvement also requires an implementation framework that can foster innovation and continuous learning from results. Based on the early experiences of the seventeen diverse Beacon Communities, this paper describes program design features that characterize how these initiatives are organized.

Beacon communities aim to use health information technology to transform the delivery of care.

The Beacon Community Program, authorized under the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), aims to demonstrate the potential for health information technology to enable local improvements in health care quality, cost efficiency, and population health. If successful, these communitywide efforts will yield important lessons that will assist other communities seeking to harness technology to achieve and sustain health care improvements. This paper highlights key programmatic details that reflect the meaningful use of technology in the fifteen Beacon communities. It describes the innovations they propose and provides insight into current and future challenges.

Uniting the tribes of health system improvement.

Nested within a growing national consensus that the performance of the US healthcare system needs to be improved are largely distinct "tribes" of experts with varying interpretations of what would constitute improvement: the quality improvement tribe, the payment reform tribe, the consumer engagement tribe, and the HIT tribe.