The state of South Carolina is the first in the nation to offer families access to programs across the state’s early childhood system through a single web portal – increasing connections to government services for children ages 0-5, reducing administrative burdens on families, and creating cost savings for government.

Michael speaks to Georgia Mjartan, Executive Director of South Carolina First Steps and the Early Childhood Advisory Council on her work on this first of its kind comprehensive portal that connects South Carolinians to the full spectrum of state- and federally-funded services available to young children. 

Learn more at https://first5sc.org/ and https://www.earlychildhoodsc.org/what-we-do/first-five-sc/ 

Michael chats with multifaceted Dr. Dan Blumenthal, President of Novocardia, the new value-based care division of Cardiovascular Associates of America. The two discuss the strides Dan and Novocardia have made in creating access to timely high-quality, affordable care by optimizing clinical efficiency, reducing avoidable hospitalizations and ER visits, and practicing evidence-based, cost-conscious cardiovascular medicine.

From WEDI's 2023 May Conference, updates on standards, the 2023 roadmap and ICD-11 from Tammy Banks, NCVHS Co-Chair, Subcommittee on Standards and Jamie Ferguson, Co-Chair, ICD-11 Policy Workgroups.

Tammy and Jamie will be presenting at WEDI's 2023 National Conference November 6-9 offering updates on a variety of NCVHS activities. Register to attend at wedi.org

From WEDI's 2023 Spring Conference, WEDI's Payment Models Workgroup Co-Chair Michael Pattwell (Edifecs) speaks with Dr. James Dom Dera (Physicians Network) and Rick Foerster (Privia Health) about their successes and challenges with value based care. 

Michael chats with Dr. Pawan Jindal, MD, CEO of Darena Solutions, A St. Louis-based tech company that delivers EHR and other health IT solutions for vendors and patients. How has technology, the 21st Century Cures Act, and patient literacy aided in the new evolution of data interoperability (not totally there yet though)

Michael speaks with Kermit Farmer, founder and Chief Ethos Officer of Paths, a service that gives doctors and team members the ability to create and share educational material to help their patients in the journey from diagnosis through recovery.

Learn more at www.villagepaths.com

From a recent WEDI health equity workgroup meeting, a chat with Mark Megerian, Technology Fellow with Optum. Visit United Health Foundation's comprehensive data and SDOH tool, America's Health Rankings (https://www.americashealthrankings.org/) to see some of the work United and Optum are doing to leverage data to address health disparities in the country. 

From a recent WEDI Health Equity Workgroup meeting, we welcome Tammy Weaver, VP Physician Professional Data with the American Medical Association

From WEDI's 2023 Spring Conference, 4 patient advocate professionals discuss how regulations and innovation are affecting patients. How close is the work of payers, providers and vendors to achieving "patient nirvana". 

Panelists: Andrew Scholnick (AARP), Melissa Williams (National Patient Advocate Foundation), Anna Hyde (Arthritis Foundation), Dr. Nicole Purcell (Alzheimer's Association). The moderator was patient advocate, influencer, and host of the HITea podcast, Grace Vinton. 

From the WEDI Archives:

Dr. Steve Waldren, Vice President and Chief Medical Informatics Officer of the American Academy of Family Physicians discusses how AAFP's Innovation Lab has embraced the power of artificial intelligence to aid their physicians with numerous functions and processes.