Develop New Workforce Models

The Maine State Innovation Model award is funding the following efforts to develop new workforce models:

Community Health Workers Pilot - Maine's Community Health Worker (CHW) initiative will develop a system of CHWs as part of Maine's transformed healthcare system. CHWs engage underserved populations by:

• providing culturally appropriate health education and outreach;
• linking individuals, communities, healthcare providers and social services;
• assuring people can access the services they need.

Research demonstrates that CHWs help improve health outcomes and reduce costs. Five SIM-funded CHW pilots will:

• Demonstrate the value of integrating CHWs into the health care team;
• Provide models for state-wide replication;
• Build a core group of experienced CHWs who can provide leadership for ongoing development of the system.

Provide QI Support for Behavioral Health Homes Learning Collaborative - Maine Quality Counts will support a Learning Collaborative for 27 Behavioral Health Home organizations. The Learning Collaborative will offer practitioners the opportunity to come together in a structured way to learn from national, state, and local experts and from each other to improve the quality of services they provide. The BHH Learning Collaborative will focus on evidence-based best practices to improve the integration of behavioral and physical health services to improve care for adults with Serious Mental Illness (SMI) and children with Serious Emotional Disturbance (SED). Additionally, the Collaborative will seek to identify best practices that can help BHH organizations enhance coordination of care and bring about improvements and efficiencies that will help to decrease costs. The Learning Collaborative will incorporate provider and consumer perspectives and will present evidence-based and emerging best practices to participants for shared learning. Participants will be involved in a series of meetings to learn about best practices in chosen areas, quality improvement methods, and change ideas, and to engage in peer learning where participants share experiences on what has worked in their settings. Quality Counts will offer three day-long Learning Sessions per year as well as conduct site visits to assess baseline; hold webinars to share best practices and innovative approaches; and provide technical assistance as needed.

Public Reporting for Quality Improvement & Payment Reform - We know that what gets measured gets improved, so in an effort to strengthen the quality and lower the cost of healthcare in Maine, the State Innovation Model award will provide additional funding to develop new quality and cost metrics that will be publicly reported on the Maine Health Management Coalition's website, www.getbettermaine.org. Patients will be encouraged to use the information to find top performing doctors and hospitals, and employers will be encouraged to use the information in their benefit designs.

Leadership Program - The State Innovation Model Leadership Program is vital element of the overall SIM initiative.  Its goals are to: 

• Establish a shared vision and a plan for sustainably providing leadership opportunities to develop the skills of health care teams (including clinicians and administrators) needed to support the accomplishment of SIM Triple Aim goals to improve health and health care in Maine; and,
• Build the capacity of health care teams (including clinicians and administrators) to successfully manage and sustain the transformational changes occurring in our health care system. 

With the guiidance of the SIM Leadership Program Advisory Committee, several major initiatives will take place from the spring of 2015 through the fall of 2016.  These include a Leadeship Visioning Forum and planning process that will pull together health and healthcare CEOs and other key decision-makers to develop the shared, long term vision for leadership development across Maine's health sector.  Beginning in September of 2015, a series of workshops will prepare team leaders and their teams to manage change and stay resilient during a period of unprecedented systems transformation here in Maine.