A source of information for Hospital-practice Acupuncturists and their Hospital Sponsors. This blog is part of the Hospital Handbook project which also includes social network sites to start or continue topic discussion.
Goals: to share collective wisdom of hospital practice
to create community
to encourage each other
to improve our knowledge and practice standards together
The submission form is open until Nov. 15th. Send in ideas and program information via the conference form to be a presenter or panelist at the Jan. 2023 virtual conference. More information about the event is on the HHP event page here.
The Hospital Handbook Project for Acupuncturists and Their Hospital Sponsors is a program of Free Range Health®, a 501(c)(3) public charity. All or part of your donation may be tax-deductible as a charitable contribution. Please consult with your tax advisor. Federal Tax ID #45-4395933
keywords: telehealth, hospital-based acupuncture programs, remote work options for clinicians, policy and procedures, hospital-based acupuncture & telehealth programs, telehealth & Chinese Herbal Medicine (CHM), VA acupuncture telehealth program, inpatient telehealth acupuncture, new program creation, wisdom-sharing, billing & reimbursement, coding for hospital-based acupuncture work, hospital-based acupuncture program manager, hospital-based acupuncturist, hospital-based integrative health programs, telehealth programs and policy for hospital-based integrative health providers, pandemic prep & response for integrative health care providers
Telehealth for oncology patients receiving treatment at
the infusion center(s)
Minute 31 -32
John discusses how the acupuncture team collaborated on
the development of a training/competency program to deliver “TCM Acupuncturist
Directed Therapeutic Strategies”.
Minute 32 -33
Setting up reimbursement for telehealth services by LAcs.
Coding, billing, reimbursement agreement with third party
payors (3PP)
Getting LAcs the access to tech for virtual visits and the
system’s EHR compatibility
keywords and phrases: telehealth, patient-centered care, hospital-based integrative health programs, hospital-based acupuncture programs, teaching self-care, delivering patient care virtually to support patient-led health goals, virtual one-on-one patient care, virtual group patient care classes, supporting patient lifestyle change for better health through the medium of telehealth, benefits of telehealth for providers and for patients in general and during a respiratory virus-based pandemic, upcoming online telehealth roundtable event on hospital-based acupuncture programs
The Hospital Practice Handbook Project's Telehealth Roundtable Pre-Event, Part 1: Why Telehealth? and What Could a Patient-Centered, Integrative Health Telehealth Program Look Like?
The pdf of this presentation will be available in the "recordings access" portion of the Roundtable ticket (Ticket Plus or Recordings Only ticket options).
Meet the community request to publicly present examples of telehealth programs in hospital-based acupuncture practice
minute 8
Defining "Telehealth"
with a citation from a peer-reviewed paper published in May 2020 by a Duke University team
Jedrek Wosik, Marat Fudim, Blake Cameron, Ziad F Gellad, Alex Cho, Donna Phinney, Simon Curtis, Matthew Roman, Eric G Poon, Jeffrey Ferranti, Jason N Katz, James Tcheng, Telehealth transformation: COVID-19 and the rise of virtual care, Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, https://doi.org/10.1093/jamia/ocaa067
minute 9
Telehealth vs. Direct Patient Care
False comparison
Clinical vs. No Clinical care is the true comparison
Leveraging technology
example: the active duty military family communication
minute 11 - 18 The Telehealth Model for Integrative Health
keywords: community survey, pandemic prep & response, telehealth, acupuncture programs, hospital-based acupuncture, FQHCs, county clinics, community health centers, phased re-opening and closing, tiered re-opening and closing, remote work options, community resource
Background
As you know, I have been hosting community discussion zoom sessions since mid-March to help the hospital-based acupuncture community discuss and share ideas on the pandemic prep & response. And, all the share-able content generated from those sessions so far is (and continues to be) uploaded to the online resource module here.
Three weeks ago a colleague recommended creating a survey to capture all the information on all the changes in a format that can:
Be edited by the data entrant [because things change!]
Create some summaries
Be a quick source of share-able community information
Situation
I finished edits on it last week and it is up and running! It is available for acupuncturists and program managers who work with acupuncturists to input their information.
Assessment & Recommendation
This could be a useful resource for the community during this time of great change if enough of us complete it.
Please complete the survey to the best of your knowledge for your program and share this link with other hospital-based practice colleagues.
Who can take the survey?
Anyone who works in an organization or facility that is accredited by or eligible for accreditation by The Joint Commission.
What is "hospital-based"?
For purposes of this survey, I define "hospital-based" as any organization or workplace that is accredited by or eligible for accreditation by The Joint Commission. This definition includes FQHCs, county clinics, community health centers, and other federal health care spaces.
keywords: telehealth, pandemic prep & response, virtual health care, hospital-based acupuncture programs, coding and reimbursement for telehealth services for integrative health practitioners, acupuncture employee, acupuncture program manager, program examples, online event
Join our experienced panel of hospital-based acupuncture program leads and managers to discuss setting up a telehealth program in medium to large healthcare systems and pivoting the work during the pandemic as part of phased re-opening/closing plans.
Telehealth Programs in Hospital-based Acupuncture Practice: Pivoting in the Pandemic
Lessons Learned, Benefits (patients, providers, system), Issues, Examples of Innovation, and Discussion
Why this online event?
The Hospital Practice Handbook Project has been hosting
community discussion space online and in live zoom sessions at least weekly since
mid-March for the hospital-based community to provide space for discussion,
problem-solving, and sharing examples of innovation as we all respond to the
pandemic in our various programs and through different stages of closing and
re-opening.
Out of these sessions came a consistent need to do even
more, particularly to host our own conference on telehealth.
Why a telehealth event specific to hospital-based
acupuncture programs?
Telehealth capability is critical for all clinicians in the
phased clinic opening/closing as communities respond to the pandemic. Some
organizations had a telehealth program in place before the pandemic, but many
stood theirs up during the pandemic as a way to support and protect both provider
personnel and patients during a respiratory-based pandemic. Some are still in
the process of standing theirs up and looking to the community for examples
that match their system.
However, not all systems have been supportive or
understanding of how acupuncturists can work via telehealth (vs. in-person),
citing “lack of access to current examples”.
So, here we are, presenting current examples of telehealth
programs in hospital-based acupuncture practice. And, having a professional Socratic
discussion on the related topics.
I hope you are able to attend or if you are otherwise
engaged that day, consider supporting via the “recordings only” ticket and
submitting your questions to the panelists in your ticket form.
All ticket revenue goes directly toward the outgoing costs of
this event (platform hosting, data, recordings, video editing, etc.). My time
and work are 100% volunteer.
For more information on confirmed panelists and updates
Go to our Facebook Event page and choose “interested” or “going” to see social media updates on this event.
Event Agenda
Introduction
Panelists each give short summaries of their programs
Socratic discussion of the topic by panelists
Some Qs from attendees posed to the panel for more discussion
Panelists include (confirmed to date)
Paul Magee, lead acupuncturist, Penny George Institute of Health and Healing, Allina Health, Minnesota
Christine Kaiser, acupuncture program manager and quality assurance, University Hospitals Connor Integrative Health Network, Cleveland, Ohio
John Burns, acupuncture program manager, Advocate Aurora of Wisconsin and Illinois
Juli Olson, National Lead, Acupuncture, Integrative Health Coordinating Center, Veterans Health Administration
Mori West, C.P.C. of AcuClaims, coding & billing expert
Nancy Gahles, Integrative Health Policy Consortium, IHPC
Please buy a ticket and share this event with anyone who may benefit from it or enjoy attending and supporting. Thank you.
More resources on telehealth
University of WA Survey of Acupuncturists during the COVID-19 Pandemic
For those of you practicing as acupuncturists, check out this IRB-approved survey from a colleague who is doing this research through the University of Washington. Looks like she is collecting data on how the pandemic is affecting practice, from direct clinical care to pivots in online resources including the use of telehealth: https://redcap.iths.org/surveys/?s=7FTTYN73X9&
suspension date: the survey closes June 8th, 2020
More info:
The survey is intended for ALL licensed acupuncturists. You don't need to have a telehealth service in place to respond to the survey. One of the aims of this survey is to set the stage for larger survey studies of profession-wide effects similar to the benchmark studies in other healthcare professions.
The estimated time to complete the survey is 5 minutes.
Principal Investigator: Tamsin Lee, DAOM
New Research Paper on Relevance of Telehealth Programs During Pandemic and Beyond, from a Duke University Team
At a time when I hear disagreement in the definition of "telehealth", I offer this very useful definition they published, which dispels all previous confusing terminology I have heard in the medical field the last year or so:
"The term 'telehealth' refers to the entire spectrum of activities used to deliver care at a distance--without direct physical contact with the patient. Telehealth encompasses both provider-to-patient and provider-to-provider communications and can take place synchronously (telephone and video), asynchronously (patient portal messages, e-consults), and through virtual agents (chatbots) and wearable devices."
Jedrek Wosik, Marat Fudim, Blake Cameron, Ziad F Gellad, Alex Cho, Donna Phinney, Simon Curtis, Matthew Roman, Eric G Poon, Jeffrey Ferranti, Jason N Katz, James Tcheng, Telehealth transformation: COVID-19 and the rise of virtual care, Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, https://doi.org/10.1093/jamia/ocaa067
More Community Resources on Pandemic Prep & Response
keywords and topics: community discussions, COVID-19 pandemic, integrative health programs, acupuncturists in hospital-based practice, telehealth in hospital-based acupuncture programs, what does tiered re-opening look like for outpatient integrative health programs?
www.thehospitalhandbook.com
The HHP-hosted Community Discussions on Pandemic Prep
& Response, a review of the work & resources so far
This video is a review of my past 3 months of work supporting
the hospital-based acupuncture community with community discussion space to
share ideas, concerns, and issues on the pandemic prep & response.
Included in this video:
·How you can support this community-building work
·How to access the resource content created
·How you can join in future discussions
·Review of the work so far
·Short review of resources for the two currently
most common topics
otelehealth
and
owhat
does tiered re-opening look like?
·Announcing the future telehealth roundtable
panel:
ohow
to participate, submit questions, and space for sponsorships
I define this as working at a facility or organization
that is accredited by or eligible for accreditation by The Joint Commission.
This includes FQHCs, some county clinics and hospitals, and hospice.
The Hospital Practice Handbook Project has multiple
platforms (website, blog, and social media page & closed discussion groups)
to connect hospital practice East Asian Medicine Practitioners (Acupuncturists)
with each other (living resources) and to published resources. Learn more about
this community resource project at http://www.thehospitalhandbook.com/
How to participate in the virtual community discussions
First, you must be a hospital-based acupuncturist or a program manager of hospital-based acupuncturists.
see definition above for "what is "hospital-based practice"
Then, contact me via the website about your interest, where you work, and how you heard about this work.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
This work sounds valuable, how can I support it? I am not a hospital-based acupuncturist.
I am interested in this content as a clinician. However, I am not a hospital-based acupuncturist. How can I support this work and get access to the content?
I am a hospital-based acupuncturist or program manager of hospital-based acupuncturists. I am not able to attend all the sessions due to my schedule. How may I access the content?
keywords and topics: year-in-review, progress in goals and projects, review of current resources
"Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible..." Saint Francis of Assisi
Outline Home and family Review of the HH Project work in 2019 Goal setting & re-evaluating 2018 goals that led to 2019 goal restructuring 2019 goals Resources that grew significantly in 2019 this also went out as an email newsletter 01.13.2020. Go here for the newsletter version.
Home and Family
First trip to collect sap from the maple trees
Now that we live in the Mid-South and my husband is on shore duty, I am taking the opportunity to travel with my kids to visit my family (just a two-day drive in the car each direction now) in Minnesota as much as we are able. As you may remember, we moved from the Pacific Northwest to western TN in the Mid-South of the U.S.A. in July 2018. One of my kids had a flare in a chronic health condition so we didn't travel until late March 2019, during spring break.
For our first "maple syrup March" we headed to the multi-generational family farm to assist (mostly watch and learn from) my uncle gather sap from the sugar bush (grove of maple trees). In summer we escaped the southern heat for a few weeks visiting family and then attended a family funeral.
In fall we again were able to escape the autumn heat of the Mid-South during fall break where we squished in time with extended family in Rochester and the North Shore, including a wedding, and a quick visit with our integrative health colleagues at the Mayo Clinic. I received a copy of their latest (2017) Guide to Integrative Medicine: Conventional remedies meet alternative therapies to transform health by Brent A. Bauer, MD. I recently rediscovered one of the older copies that survived all the household moves (2007).
In early September my oldest was officially in remission (no more flare). Hooray! In late September my mom was hospitalized for anemia and later diagnosed with cancer. So this fall has been a rollercoaster of health issues with my family.
January – March 2019: I worked with a professional editor to re-write the blog post series, “Get Your Foot in the Door of Hospital-based Practice” into two publications: a booklet and its companion workbook
May 2019 submission to The 2020 International
Congress on Integrative Medicine and Health (ICIMH). At the encouragement of my
hospital-based colleagues, I submitted a multi-day pre-conference idea for
“Basics of Hospital-based Practice for Acupuncturists and their Hospital
Admin.”
Late June 2019, I attended the 2019 Society of
Acupuncture Research Conference in Burlington, Vermont
This conference experience was wonderful. I was able to cheer on my colleague,
Lisa Taylor-Swanson, PhD, in presenting our work related to WA State Workers'
Comp Pilot. I met up with many of my hospital-based practice colleagues and
introduced more people to the Project community.
You can read more about the conference in the article I
wrote for JASA and see notes, photos, citations of work from the conference, and how to join SAR in the Notes from the 2019 SAR Conference online module.
July 2019—published two articles in the peer-reviewed
journal,Journal of the American Society of Acupuncturists (JASA),
formerly Meridians: Journal of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (JAOM)
“Dear Editor…” is a short description of what the
Hospital Practice Handbook Project is: a resource for acupuncturists, a
resource for acupuncture program managers, and everyone working with
them.
"There are two objects of medical education: to heal the sick, and to advance the science...Medicine is both an art and a science, and both make appeal to the true physician." C.H. Mayo
October MN trip—visited the Mayo Clinic's integrative
medicine team. See our Facebook Page for an album of photos from this trip, especially if you have never visited the Mayo Rochester complex. For more about the history and architecture of the Mayo Rochester health system, two useful resources are the Olmsted County History Center and the Mayo Clinic History website.
My favorite door to a hospital building.
Amazing artwork and symbolism of health in the community and the practice of medicine.
See more photos here.
December 2019: ICIMH 2020 session proposal accepted!
Our session proposal on reimbursement issues & revenue streams was accepted! I will lead the session, “Reimbursement Issues and Revenue Streams for Hospital-based
Programs and Organizations with Acupuncturists: Current Practices, Innovations
and Issues” with Christine Kaiser, Timothy Suh, Annie Budhathoki, and Paul
Magee. We are scheduled to present Friday, May 1st, 2020 at the 2020 International Congress on Integrative Medicine and Health (ICIMH) in Cleveland, Ohio.🎉
Integrative Oncology—what does success look like in an integrative oncology program?
The survey closed in late October 2019. Submissions still
being processed. Current public HH Project resource page on integrative
oncology is Research
Thursdays: Oncology
I haven’t compiled answers. I did, at the June 2019 SAR conference, present and submit questions to the hospital-based
practice session on EHR templates and use at the June 2019 SAR conference.
Sept 2019 webinar: “Issues in Hospital-based Practice: Hospital
Contracting” with Dr. Timothy Suh was done live. I have received permission to
publish and share part of the recorded session. I will share this soon.
Review of 2018 HH Project Goals and How They Led Us to Our 2019 Work
The main HH Project goals in 2018 were to
maintain the space for the community in closed social
media groups
post share-able information on the blog
start the HH Project Learning Opportunities Directory
and
publish monthly general newsletters in 2018
finish beta-testing the membership site community space
option
The goal with the creation of the membership site
The goal was to have an online community space that is not dependent on social media
and it is accessible through online direct login and/or by email with updates and reminders available to be sent via email. This, the membership site, was a strong request from
about 25-30% of the community who are opting out of social media and 50% who
have social media accounts but prefer email communication.
The New HH Project Goal in 2018
The new HH Project goal in 2018 was to identify types of
people using the HH Project resources and brainstorm ideas on how to best serve
them. So, in 2019 I created the following "user-flow" outline and started the “specific resource
generation” work
This Leads to the 2019 Project Goals
Maintain the Basics
So, in 2019, I continued to nurture the community
discussion groups (mainly Facebook and membership site in 2019; LinkedIn has
not been actively engaging), the blog, the website, and the monthly
newsletters.
The New 2019 HH Project Goal: Create Resources Specific for Identified User-Types in Community
The new goal that started in 2019 was to create
stand-alone starting resources for the following user-types identified in 2018.
The student or prospective practitioner interested in a
hospital-based practice
The new hospital (LAc) employee (0-5 years practice)
Resource packets
on the process of getting hired, what it is to be an employee in a hospital/healthcare
system, and more resources identified by the community as needed for the
practitioner 0-5 years into hospital-based practice
The resource is
in the beta-testing process. The online resource is available for early
purchase at a low rate to help support the project while still in the
beta-testing phase
HH Project Resources that Grew Significantly in 2019
The following online resources grew significantly in 2019:
Membership site
More resources
added each month
Lots of pdfs and more available by request
Access to some courses from the online school on a
temporary or rotating basis, depending on community feedback.
Want to join the membership site?
You are eligible if you
work at a hospital or other types of facilities that are accredited by or
eligible for accreditation by The Joint Commission, and you have a
sponsor/mentor to the group. Just send me an email with some information
about where you work and who your sponsor/mentor to the group is. If you don’t
have a sponsor/mentor, contact me, and I will endeavor to connect you to a
potential sponsor.
Buy Megan a cup of coffee/tea/cocoa—still the most popular page on the website and my favorite encouragement of my writing & coordinating work. Thank you for all who have bought me a virtual cuppa this year. 😊
