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Jean O’Connor talks chronic diseases

Reducing Chronic Diseases In Georgia

This week I sat down with Dr. Jean O’Connor of the Georgia Department of Public Health to talk about efforts to reduce occurrence of numerous chronic diseases in Georgia.  Chronic diseases – such as asthma, cancer, diabetes and heart disease – cost Georgia approximately $40 billion dollars each year, contribute to increased absenteeism among students and employees, increase health care costs for Georgia employers, and result in more than 200,000 thousands of years of life lost. Chronic diseases in Georgia are preventable and controllable.

Through better nutrition, increased physical activity, eliminating tobacco use and providing access to high quality health care delivery practices, Georgia can improve population health, support better educational outcomes and economic development, and improve the quality of life for the state’s families and communities.  Physicians and other health care providers can use a common risk factor approach to control chronic disease in Georgia by encouraging behavior change, providing guidelines-based care and creating healthier communities.

Specifically, physicians can implement three overarching strategies into their patient care protocols to identify, control and prevent chronic diseases:

1. Use the 5As to address tobacco use with patients – ask, advise, assess, assist, arrange

2. Recommend physical activity and healthy eating using the new U.S. Dietary Guidelines

3. Utilize electronic health records (EHR) technology to quickly identify potential cases of undiagnosed

hypertension and diabetes to rescreen and monitor those patients regularly

The Georgia Department of Public Health provides resources and tools to support providers interested in engaging in these best practices.

Jean O’Connor, JD, MPH, DrPH, is the Chronic Disease Prevention Director at the Georgia Department of Public Health (DPH).  Since joining the agency in 2013, Dr. O’Connor has held responsibility for developing and managing statewide public health programs related to cancer screening and treatment, heart disease, diabetes, tobacco use prevention, adolescent health, nutrition, physical activity and asthma.

She also serves as the principal investigator on chronic disease-related federal cooperative agreements that provide funding, technical assistance and evaluation to Georgia health systems, local health departments and other partner organizations.  In subsequent years, Dr. O’Connor served as a state deputy health director; a health scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); and a health policy advisor.

For the past 12 years, she has also taught public health law and policy as an affiliate professor at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health.  Dr. O’Connor earned her Juris Doctor and Master of Public Health degrees from Emory University, and a Doctor of Public Health degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is a member of the State Bar of Georgia and serves on the Board of Directors for the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors (NACDD).

Special Guest:

Dr. Jean O’Connor, JD, Chronic Disease Prevention Director, Georgia Department of Public Health (DPH)

Jean O’Connor talks chronic diseases Reducing Chronic Diseases In Georgia This week I sat down with Dr. Jean O’Connor of the Georgia Department of Public Health to talk about efforts to reduce occurrence of numerous chronic diseases in Georgia.  Chronic diseases – such as asthma, cancer, diabetes and heart disease – cost Georgia approximately $40 […]

Dr. Dorothy Mitchell-Leef

Infertility

This week Tanya hosted Dr. Dorothy Mitchell-Leef, MD, a long-time expert in infertility.  Respected in her field, she has helped parents give birth to over 8,000 babies.  Tanya and Dr. Mitchell-Leef discussed some of the common causes of infertility, along with treatments available today, which have significantly improved the likelihood of mothers successfully conceiving a child when they were initially having trouble.

More information soon!

 

Dr. Dorothy Mitchell-Leef Infertility This week Tanya hosted Dr. Dorothy Mitchell-Leef, MD, a long-time expert in infertility.  Respected in her field, she has helped parents give birth to over 8,000 babies.  Tanya and Dr. Mitchell-Leef discussed some of the common causes of infertility, along with treatments available today, which have significantly improved the likelihood of […]

Transition to MIPS On this week’s MAG episode, I hosted Dr. Adrienne Mims, Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, Medicare Quality Improvement for Alliant Quality, to talk about the transition to the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS). Adrienne Mims, M.D., MPH, is the vice president and chief medical officer for Alliant GMCF. Board certified in […]

Transition to MIPS

On this week’s MAG episode, I hosted Dr. Adrienne Mims, Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, Medicare Quality Improvement for Alliant Quality, to talk about the transition to the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS).

Adrienne Mims, M.D., MPH, is the vice president and chief medical officer for Alliant GMCF. Board certified in family medicine and geriatrics, she has more than 30 years of primary care, consultative and home care geriatric experience. Dr. Mims serves on a number of boards, including the American Health Quality Association (the trade association for Medicare Quality Improvement Organizations), the Georgia Academy of Family Physicians, and the PCPI (the national organization that develops quality measures for all specialties).

In addition, the MAG member serves on the NCQA Geriatric Measurement Advisory Panel and the NCQA Clinical Programs Committee.  Dr. Mims was the medical director of the Georgia Medicaid Management Program, and she was the director of prevention health promotion and research with The Southeast Permanente Medical Group in Atlanta.

Dr. Mims completed her undergraduate training at George Washington University, her medical school at Stanford University, her residency at the Martin Luther King Jr./Charles Drew Medical Center, and her geriatric fellowship at the West Los Angeles VA. She also has an MPH in epidemiology from UCLA. It is imperative for medical practices to make a successful transition to Medicare’s new Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS).

Instead of the EHR (Electronic Health Record) or the PQRS (Physician Quality Reporting System) or the Value-based Payment Modifier programs, the government will employ a single payment platform

– which is the result of the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) that was signed into law in 2015. The new payment model will be based on a 100-point MIPS Composite Performance Score. That CPS will determine your Medicare payment adjustment – either up or down.

This is scheduled to commence in 2019, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will use the 2017 calendar year as the basis for the initial reimbursement – keeping mind this is not an optional process.

Special Guest:

Dr. Adrienne Mims, Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, Medicare Quality Improvement, Alliant Quality

 

Genetic Testing Our partner, Tanya Mack of Womens Telehealth hosted experts from MNG Labs to learn about genetic testing and how it can help parents and physicians make educated decisions during pregnancy as well as in patient care. Check back soon for more information!    

Genetic Testing

Our partner, Tanya Mack of Womens Telehealth hosted experts from MNG Labs to learn about genetic testing and how it can help parents and physicians make educated decisions during pregnancy as well as in patient care.

Check back soon for more information!

 

 

Maternal Fetal Medicine via Telehealth Women’s Telehealth’s Tanya Mack, interviews the company’s CEO and Medical Director, Dr. C. Anne Patterson, discussing maternal-fetal medicine as a specialty, and how they are now able to capitalize on telemedicine technology to deliver high-risk maternity care to a wider patient population. Maternal fetal medicine is rare sub-specialty of obstetrics which […]

Dr. C. Anne Patterson

Tanya Mack

Maternal Fetal Medicine via Telehealth

Women’s Telehealth’s Tanya Mack, interviews the company’s CEO and Medical Director, Dr. C. Anne Patterson, discussing maternal-fetal medicine as a specialty, and how they are now able to capitalize on telemedicine technology to deliver high-risk maternity care to a wider patient population.

Maternal fetal medicine is rare sub-specialty of obstetrics which delivers high risk obstetric care. These

specialists manage complex complications of pregnancy such as: multiple gestations, chronic medical

conditions during pregnancy, gestational diabetes and fetal abnormalities. The CDC and March of Dimes both estimate that in 2015 in the US, approximately 1:10 babies in the US are born prematurely.

GA ranks 50/50 for maternal death and 42/50 for infant mortality. Getting access to maternal fetal medicine services is often difficult as there are only about 1200 MFM physicians in the US and most are not located in rural areas.

Clearly, there is a need for many physicians of different specialties in rural areas and maternal-fetal medicine is one of them.  OB practices and hospitals in these areas can engage with Womens Telehealth to be able to help these patients avoid having to spend long travel times in cars to be seen by these needed specialists.  This allows them to stay closer to home and receive care in their local community.

But this solution has value for urban practices as well.  There are very few maternal-fetal specialists nationwide—only ~20 or so in Georgia.  By deploying the Womens Telehealth solution, these city-based groups and hospitals can also provide access to this specialty care for their patients, preventing potential loss of the patient to other facilities/groups in the community that do have maternal-fetal specialists on campus.

Special Guest:

Dr. C. Anne Patterson, CEO/Medical Director, Womens Telehealth