|
|
||
 |
||
Georgia Health Policy Center1
at the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies
The Health Policy Center's fundamental mission is to improve health status in communities by developing recommendations and implementation strategies to improve health care quality, access, and cost. Through research, policy development, program design and implementation, and evaluation, Center staff, University faculty, and representatives of collaborating organizations assist in the formulation of health care policy at the state and national levels. Through its Child Policy Initiative, the Center also addresses children's policy issues beyond health care. The 2003 projects of the Health Policy Center included the following program areas: children's health and well-being, community health system development, evaluation, grants management, healthcare coverage, and long-term care. Karen Minyard is the Director of the Health Policy Center.
In This Page:
- Programs and Projects
- Publications
Programs and Projects
Child Well-Being
The Child Policy Initiative aims to improve child policy in Georgia through applied research and analysis. The Initiative's current efforts relate to child poverty, children's health policy, childcare and early learning, and child protective services. The Initiative provides analysis of existing policies and future options, research into best practices, and objective facilitation and support for state agencies involved in children's policy. Monica Herk manages the Child Policy Initiative.
Grant from the United Parcel Service Foundation. Monica Herk. The Child Policy Initiative received a follow-up grant from the United Parcel Service Foundation to support its work on children’s policy. The program contributes to scientific knowledge about children and to the policies that guide children's programs in Georgia. ($62,500)
Health Needs of Foster Children. Monica Herk, Katherine Gardner, Martha Nunez, and Bernette McColley. This project will analyze Medicaid and PeachCare claims data to determine gaps and duplications in Georgia’s provision of health care services to foster children. ($20,000)
Oral Health Data Project. Monica Herk and Katherine Gardner. This project provides claims data analysis for the Georgia Oral Health Prevention Program and consulting to Division of Public Health staff. ($16,486)
Community Health Systems Development
Community Health Systems Development is a state- and national-level program designed to: (1) assure rural residents access to primary health care services in the communities in which they live; (2) improve health status of rural communities; and (3) help rural health systems fully participate in networks and thrive as health care delivery becomes increasingly competitive. The Health Policy Center has assembled a team of rural health experts who provide tailored technical assistance, facilitation, mediation, and consultation to participating communities. Collectively, the team has experience in community development, clinical medicine, behavioral health, hospital financing, strategic planning, economics, managed care, and organizational development. The program deliverables include working with 19 networks in Georgia and 60 in other states; developing financial, clinical, and governance leaders; profiling rural community health systems; facilitating healthcare strategic planning processes; providing education from program learnings; and participating in state level rural health system policy making. Tina Anderson Smith manages the Community Health Systems Development program.
Access Georgia Rural Health Matching Grants Initiative. Tina Anderson Smith. The Rural Health Matching Grants Initiative is a two-year initiative of the Philanthropic Collaborative for a Healthy Georgia, the Georgia Department of Community Health, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. This rural health initiative focuses on making grants to improve access and health status and reducing health disparities for underserved populations in rural areas. The Georgia Health Policy Center manages these grants and provides tailored technical assistance to the nine grant recipients ranging from leadership to strategic planning to mediation to the development of quality assurance mechanisms. (Two years, $2,000,000)
Central Georgia Cancer Coalition. Chris Parker. The Central Georgia Cancer Coalition is a 30-month initiative to assist Community Health Works (a rural health network in Central Georgia) with the planning and development of a Regional Program of Excellence in Central Georgia. The deliverables of this project consist of the establishment of a multi-disciplinary team of experts to assist in the planning and oversight of the program, definition of the scope and methodology of the project, information gathering and dissemination, and facilitation of meetings. (30 months, $120,000)
DCH/ORHS Network Board Development. Tina Anderson Smith. The network board development project is accomplished in partnership with the Fanning Institute for Leadership at the University of Georgia in Athens. The purpose of this project is to provide training and education to the coordinators and governing bodies of the rural health networks funded by the Office of Rural Health Services in the state. (One year, $20,000)
HIV/AIDS and STD Services for Young Women in Rural Georgia. Claudia Lacson and Tina Anderson Smith. The HIV/AIDS/STD project is a research study in partnership with the Centers for Disease Control to identify the issues influencing the access to, and utilization of, HIV/STD services and education for women residing in rural communities in Georgia. (One year, $45,000)
Networks for Rural Health. Tina Anderson Smith. Networks for Rural Health is a state level program designed to: (1) assure rural residents of Georgia access to primary health care services in the communities in which they live; and (2) help rural health systems fully participate in networks and thrive as health care delivery becomes increasingly competitive. The project deliverables include working with 19 networks; developing financial, clinical, and governance leaders; profiling rural community health systems; providing education from program learnings; and participating in state level rural health system policy making. (Two years, $750,000)
Rabun County Healthcare Strategic Planning. Claudia Lacson. The purpose of this project is to guide a community-wide healthcare system strategic planning process. The deliverables consist of assembling the leadership in the county, conducting key stakeholder interviews, collecting and analyzing demographic, health status, and socioeconomic data, understanding community perceptions, conducting a healthcare dollar flow analysis, identifying the scope of clinical services, and conducting a strategic planning retreat with community leaders. (Six months, $30,000)
Rural Health Network Technical Assistance Program (RHN TAP). Tina Anderson Smith. RHN TAP is an 18-month initiative designed to provide technical assistance to the 52 Rural Health Networks and eigth Delta State Rural Health Networks funded by HRSA Office of Rural Health Policy in 30 states throughout the United States. The Health Policy Center has assembled a team of national rural health experts and consultants who provide tailored technical assistance, facilitation, mediation, and consultation to participating communities. (18 months, $1,000,000)
Evaluation
ACET Collaborative Team [ACT] Evaluation Project. Laura Henderson and Monica Herk. The ACT evaluation project is a multi-year process and outcome evaluation of a child care training and technical assistance project by the state of Georgia. The evaluation includes observations of classroom quality and focus groups and interviews with early childhood teachers statewide. (Year 2: $504,164, Year 3: $249,870)
Customer Service Surveys, Health Insurance Claims System. Monica Herk, Martha Nunez, Katherine Gardner, and Priscilla Heffelfinger. This project developed and analyzes an ongoing semi-annual customer satisfaction survey for users of the PeachCare and Medicaid computerized claims system. ($253,530)
Evaluation of Fire and Fall Prevention. Judith Ottoson and Mark Rivera. This project evaluates Remembering When: A Fire and Fall Prevention program for Older Adults. The program was developed jointly by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Fire Protection Association. Initiated two years ago, the CDC seeks to understand the implementation process and program effects before a decision is made about a national program roll out. Control and experimental sites for the evaluation are in Virginia where the project is working cooperatively with local Area Agencies on Aging. (One year, $271,045)
Evaluation of Georgia's Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Monica Herk and Katherine Gardner. The Child Policy Initiative and Health Policy Center are analyzing data from Georgia's health insurance program to serve low-income children, PeachCare for Kids. The analyses assess the program's effectiveness in achieving several goals: improved access to insurance, improved access to primary care, access to high-quality health services, and better health outcomes. The effort includes original data collection through surveys of new enrollees and applicants and evaluation of health insurance claims data. Results support policy and program development at DMA, and also are reported to the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, to be combined with results of other state CHIP programs. ($173,812)
Evaluation of the Management Academy for Public Health. Judith Ottoson. This project serves to coordinate the internal and external evaluation of the Management Academy for Public Health at the University of North Carolina for the National Foundation for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The program involves the training of frontline public health workers in management skills. It has potential as a prototype for national training of public health workers. (2000-2003, $24,965)
Evaluation of the National School Health Coordinator Leadership Institute. Judith Ottoson. The American Cancer Society developed the Institute in 1999 to facilitate school health coordination as part of a broad prevention strategy. Evaluation team members included Mark Rivera, research associate, and PAUS faculty members John Thomas and Greg Streib. The evaluation of the Institute outcomes has been a focus of this project ,which involved on-site and followed surveys of participants over the three years of Institute implementation. Although the formal evaluation ended in 2003, the research team continues to work with the ACS to gather information from participants of Institute replication efforts conducted across the country. The team also conducted interviews and examined selected School Health Coordinator portfolios to identify instances where the Institute may have acted as a catalyst for other efforts. (Three years, $203,871)
National Diabetes Program-Evaluation. Judith Ottoson and Mark Rivera. This project funded by the Centers for Disease Control has developed a case study of five Diabetes Prevention and Control Centers which are successful in achieving national diabetes objectives. Using a “model of influence” developed by the Division of Diabetes Translation at the CDC, factors influencing the success of the centers have been identified, as well as additional proximal indicators. (One year, $147,316)
Grants and Special Projects Management
The Center partners with public and private grant makers to leverage federal, state, local, and philanthropic resources, empower local communities, and address priority health care problems. Mary Ann Phillips oversees grants and special projects management.
Improving Outreach and Utilization in PeachCare for Kids and Medicaid. Mary Ann Phillips. In the second year of this two-year contract, Health Policy Center staff coordinated activities related to enhancing the utilization of primary care services for children enrolled in the Department of Community Health’s PeachCare for Kids and Medicaid programs. The activities included the development, review and approval of proposals for health providers and community-based organizations to improve utilization of health services by children enrolled in these public insurance programs. Grants were awarded to six community agencies around Georgia. Programs were monitored throughout the year. In addition to the work related to the utilization grantees, outreach materials were developed in both English and Spanish to explain some of the Department’s programs. (Two years, $1,500,000)
Healthcare Georgia Foundation. Mary Ann Phillips. The Health Policy Center was awarded a grant from the Healthcare Georgia Foundation to enhance Georgia’s school health capacity and to conduct research to inform Georgia’s foundations about best options for collaborative work to address overweight children in Georgia. (Two years, $125,000)
Philanthropic Collaborative for a Healthy Georgia. Mary Ann Phillips. Representatives of the Georgia philanthropic and corporate foundation communities have joined forces to enhance the ability of foundations to identify, fund, and evaluate health grant-making opportunities throughout the state. The effort has become known as the Philanthropic Collaborative for a Healthy Georgia. The Health Policy Center serves as the administrative and technical home for the Collaborative. As a means of building a public/private partnership between the Georgia Department of Community Health and the foundations, the Department provided state money to be used as a match for foundations and communities in responding to mutually agreed upon priority health care needs. The Health Policy Center, in its role as coordinator of the activities of the Philanthropic Collaborative, serves as the liaison between the foundations and the Department of Community Health. During 2003, Center staff monitored and provided technical assistance to 13 communities receiving funds through the school health matching grants program; finalized a framework for assessing community-based cancer prevention and control efforts for Georgia; and coordinated the childhood obesity initiative with a goal of informing, engaging, and energizing Georgia’s foundations to work towards reducing the incidence of childhood obesity in Georgia. ($50,000)
Health Care Coverage
The Georgia Health Policy Center has been involved in projects examining health care coverage since it was invited by the Governor to participate in the Georgia Medicaid reform process of 1995. The Center has recently completed work with the Georgia Governor's Office of Planning and Budget on the initial phase of a State Planning Grant for the Uninsured, funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). Center personnel managed and participated with a data collection team that produced information on Georgia's uninsured population that was never before available. The Coverage Program draws from the expertise of individuals within all the other program areas at the Center and allows us to also include expert researchers from other colleges within the university. Personnel directing or participating in various coverage projects have included Karen Minyard, Mary Ann Phillips, Tina Anderson-Smith, and Glenn M. Landers.
Georgia Indigent Care Trust Fund Primary Care Evaluation. Glenn M. Landers. Under contract to the Georgia Department of Community Health, the Health Policy Center completed a three-year evaluation of participating hospitals’ plans for, and uses of, the primary care portion of Indigent Care Trust Fund (ICTF) dollars. Georgia’s ICTF represents the largest component of disproportionate share hospital payments distributed through Georgia Medicaid. Georgia is the only state that requires hospitals to allocate fifteen percent of its ICTF dollars to primary care services. Ninety-two hospitals participated in the program in 2003, accounting for almost $55,000,000 in primary care expenditures. The goal of this evaluation is to determine hospitals’ compliance with policies and primary care plans, the degree to which ICTF dollars are having an impact on the health status of local communities, and whether or not eligible recipients are receiving services. ($242,900)
HRSA State Planning Grant for the Uninsured. Karen Minyard. The Center is currently managing the consensus building and modeling stage for the “HRSA State Planning Grant for the Uninsured,” under contract with the Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget, by and on behalf of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Resources Services Administration. This project will, for the first time, allow researchers to estimate with greater accuracy the burden of the uninsured across the state. The Center is also developing a strategic plan that will enable the state to address how it might contribute to the reduction in the number of the state's 1,000,000 uninsured residents. ($499,492)
Making Coverage for the Uninsured: The Role of Community Initiatives. This project is funded by the Commonwealth Fund and it is developed in partnership with Mathematica Policy Research. The purpose of this project is to understand how specific initiatives have developed and sustained financing to provide care for the uninsured. Three sites throughout the United States will be studied by the research team, interviews will be conducted with key stakeholders, and findings reported and published to inform policymakers and communities trying to replicate these projects. (Six months, $150,000)
Long-Term Care Partnership
The Center continued its relationship with the Center for Health Services Research at the Robinson College of Business in its Long-Term Care Partnership study. Under the direction of Principle Investigator James P. Cooney, Jr., center staff assisted with the analysis of Medicare and Medicaid claims data to assist the state of Georgia in evaluating the cost and care outcomes of institutional versus home and community-based services. Long-term care costs account for the largest percentage of annual Medicaid expenditures in Georgia, and program administrators are using the information products from the study to help determine how best to allocate state resources for the growing population in need of long-term care services. James P. Cooney, Jr. (RBC) and Glenn M. Landers. (GHPC) ($1,250,444)
Child Policy Briefs, Atlanta: Child Policy Initiative, March 2003
- Children in Georgia’s Juvenile Justice System
- Why Do Young Teachers Leave Teaching?
- Uninsured Children in Georgia
- Parental Involvement in Early Childhood Education
Georgia Health Policy Center Issue Briefs
- “1% of Medicaid Members Generate 23% of Expenditures…”—An Argument for Case Management, October 2003.
- Georgia Health Care Access Forum—Executive Report, October 2003.
Framework for Community-Based Cancer Prevention and Control, Georgia Health Policy Center, August 2003.
ACET Collaborative Team (ACT) Project: Mid-Year Evaluation Progress Report, November 2002-April 2003, Laura Henderson, Dana Rickman, Craig Gordon, Monica Herk, and Jennifer Antinozzi, Atlanta: Child Policy Initiative, July 2003.
ACET Collaborative Team (ACT) Project Final Evaluation Report: November 2001-October 2003. Laura Henderson and Monica Herk (with Dana K. Rickman, Craig T. Gordon, Elizabeth A. Stone, and Karen F. DeVivo), GSU, November 2003.
The Management Academy for Public Health: Combined Internal and External Evaluation Report. J.M. Ottoson. Prepared for the National Foundation for the Centers for Disease Control, 2003.
Diabetes Prevention and Control Program Case Study Design. Judith Ottoson, Mark Rivera, Sara Hackley, and Rachel Belew. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Division of Diabetes Translation (DDT) Contract No. 200-202-F-00757, July 2003.
DDT Case Studies: An Annotated Bibliography. Judith Ottoson, Mark Rivera, Sara Hackley, and Rachel Belew. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Division of Diabetes Translation (DDT) Contract No. 200-202-F-00757, June 2003.
Final Report: Evaluation of Georgia State University’s Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers to Use Technology Grant, Mark Rivera, Gary Henry and Judith Ottoson, June 2003.
Final Report: Evaluation of the Metro Atlanta Partnership for Visual Arts and Learning, Mark Rivera and Gary Henry,March 2003.
Update, a newsletter prepared for the Philanthropic Collaborative for a Healthy Georgia, Summer 2003.
1. For a complete listing of AYSPS Active Research Sponsored Grants from CY2003, see the Appendix: Report on External Funding.
