January 2011

A report on events affecting Oklahoma providers

January 1

Happy New Year!

January 2-8

National Folic Acid Awareness Week

More Information

January 7

NCAD

2nd Annual National Conference on Addiction Disorders (NCAD) will be taking place September 17 – 21, 2011 at the Town & Country Hotel

San Diego

More Information

January 11—February 15

Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Training

Lawton

More information

January 13—14

SOAR Training

Tulsa

More Information

January 19

Oklahoma Prevention Network Training & Meeting

Oklahoma City

More Information

January 24—25

ASIST Training

Oklahoma City

More Information

January second Wednesday of each month

Inpatient CareConnection®

APS Healthcare offers web-based CareConnection® training from 12noon to 1pm on the .

More Information

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

Follow ThinkHealth on Twitter!

Questions or comments? Email us at [email-masked] or call 405.286.1674

To remove your name from our mailing list, please click here.

Practice Management Insight

Mindfulness Meditation On A Par With Antidepressants At

Preventing Depression Relapse

In preventing depression relapse, a course of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy using meditation was found to be as effective as traditional antidepressant medication when tested against placebo in a recent study done in Candada.

See full article

Oklahoma’s EHR Incentive Program to Begin January 3, 2011

The Electronic Health Records (EHR) Incentive Program is a federal program that offers major financial support to assist certain providers to adopt (acquire and install), implement (train staff, deploy tools, exchange data), upgrade (expand functionality or interoperability) or meaningfully use certified EHR technology. The purpose of the program is to improve outcomes, facilitate access, simplify care, and reduce costs of health care nationwide.

OHCA will begin the program for eligible professionals and eligible hospitals on January 3, 2011. For more information, visit the CMS EHR Incentive Program website: www.cms.gov/EHRIncentivePrograms/.

January 2 – 8

National Folic Acid Awareness Week

National Council on Folic Acid

We do software right.

Are Behavioral Healthcare Professionals and Facilities Now Eligible for this Money?

At present, many behavioral health professionals are not yet eligible and most facilities are excluded. Yet, passage of a new bill could change that soon.

Here's what happened: The original ARRA legislation specifically identified physicians and nurse practitioners as eligible professionals, but excluded other licensed behavioral health providers as well as psychiatric hospitals from the definitions of those who would qualify for EHR incentives.

A bill to “fix” these disparities, The Health Information Technology Extension for Behavioral Health Services Act of 2010 (HR 5040), was introduced in the U.S. House of  Representatives by Congressmen Patrick J. Kennedy and Tim Murphy in April 2010. This bill specifically includes typical behavioral health professionals including clinical psychologists and clinical social workers in the EP definition used for incentives, and specifically includes psychiatric hospitals and behavioral health/addiction treatment centers in its “hospital/organizational” definition. Read more...

What Will Shape Healthcare in 2011?

Boston — David E. Williams, co-founder of MedPharma Partners and author of the Health Business Blog predicts that transparency, mobile health, patient safety and the implementation of health reform  will be the big healthcare stories of 2011. The four predictions are based on his own insights and the views of his Twitter followers including prominent healthcare executives and entrepreneurs.

Click here to read about the four predictions...

Grant Applications now being Accepted for 2011 Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program

The U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs and Bureau of Justice Assistance has released the 2011 fiscal year solicitation for Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program grant applications. The program is designed to increase public safety through innovative cross-system collaboration for individuals with mental illness who come into contact with the criminal justice system.

Click here to learn more...

OrionNet Systems Supports going GREEN

OrionNet Systems continues to do its part in affecting the environment by recycling paper and plastics within our organization. Our biggest impact, however, and perhaps yours too, comes from reducing our daily paper consumption. At OrionNet Systems, we are helping our centers go green with Digital Signatures, creating Digital Documents to let them save on paper, as well as, Electronic Invoicing.

If you are not participating just yet with electronic invoicing, we encourage you to do so beginning 2011.  As time goes on, switching more and more from paper to electronic processes plays an important

role in leading our centers toward a more sustainable waste minimization future. Help create an important ‘snowball’ effect: from decreasing number of trees needed, to decreasing courier services and employee travel, on through to reducing fuel consumption and emissions.

In general, the more we can do to reduce negative impacts on environmental health through reduced paper consumption, the more our centers may benefit through improved public opinion and reduced operating costs.

Together we’ll reduce environmental impact without sacrificing our product quality or functions and have cleaner production processes.