PHMI’s goal is to improve quality of care and equitable health outcomes of people served by CHCs. The principles of the Initiative are centered on advancing CHCs’ capabilities in population health management (PHM). One of those primary capabilities is empanelment, which is designating groups of patients to be cared for by individual clinicians and care teams. Empanelment is a cornerstone of high-performing primary care practices and PHM efforts and one of the foundational elements of the PHMI intervention.
The 2024 NACHC Community Health Institute & EXPO is the premiere gathering of the nation’s CHCs, the largest network of primary care providers in the nation. The conference, which took place August 24-26 in Atlanta, GA, is designed to provide attendees with the latest in science, education, practice, and policy that health centers need to stay competitive and financially stable. Kaiser Permanente Community Health was a Champion level sponsor.
At the conference, Eugenia Black, PHMI Senior Practice Implementation Coach presented a robust poster titled Transforming Primary Care Delivery: Empanelment’s Role in Population Health Management Initiative. The poster covered PHMI’s approach to implementing empanelment, including a focus on key activities and minimum standards that ensure sustainability. It highlighted challenges that subject matter experts (SMEs) incur in supporting CHCs to accomplish their goals within technology, workflows, staffing, and policy decisions.
Lastly, the poster shared the quantity of technical assistance that PHMI committed to supporting CHCs in implementing empanelment: an average of 11.4 SME hours to support the meeting of the minimum standards. The presentation resonated with attendees from various backgrounds, and especially with, Medical Directors, CMOs, and CEOs from Federally Qualified Health Centers. Attendees were interested in sustainability, financial impacts, and the logistics of empanelment. The poster drew more than 100 visitors, generating many downloads of the Building the Foundation Empanelment Guide and other PHMI resources.
Many thanks to the authors of the poster: Eugenia Black, MPH, MSN, FNP-BC*, Caitlin Seal, MPH*, Meena Mital, MD*, Katie Coleman, MSPH*, Greg Vachon, MD^, Jeanene Smith, MD, MPH^, Leslie Brooks ^, Boris Kalikstein-. (*Kaiser Permanente, ^Health Management Associates, -JSI)