MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The West Virginia University Office of Health Services Research (OHSR) is one of two groups in the country to earn an award from the Association of Clinicians for the Underserved (ACU).
OHSR Assistant Director Adam Baus, M.P.H., M.A., accepted the community agency award at the ACU’s Health Information Technology for the Underserved Conference March 8-9 in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.
A division of the WVU School of Public Health, OHSR is a funded partner with the West Virginia Bureau for Public Health and supports quality of care improvement, especially in the areas of diabetes, cardiovascular disease and asthma. OHSR assists primary care centers statewide in accurately tracking patient outcomes, benchmarking care against national standards and modifying clinical policies and procedures for better outcomes.
“The reviewers were impressed by the way the OHSR and the West Virginia Bureau for Public Health partner with primary care providers,” Baus said. “They also praised our innovative and data-driven quality improvement efforts in high-need, priority patient populations.”
The ACU bestows the community agency award upon organizations that have demonstrated a commitment to underserved patients. To be eligible, agencies must have used health information technology to enhance outreach, cost-saving technology, care coordination programs, health information exchange, patient care experience and consideration of language, culture and literacy.
“We are very proud to receive this honor from the ACU,” OHSR Director Cecil Pollard said. “We are fortunate to not only have available the vast resources of West Virginia University but also the long-standing funding from the West Virginia Bureau for Public Health. Without those entities, none of our efforts to improve lives in the Mountain State would be possible.”
OHSR currently works with primary care sites in 31 West Virginia counties by supporting their use of electronic health records, providing education on chronic disease prevention and teaching how to use clinical outcomes data for improvement. Those counties include Boone, Braxton, Cabell, Calhoun, Fayette, Gilmer, Greenbrier, Hancock, Hardy, Harrison, Jackson, Jefferson, Kanawha, Marion, McDowell, Mercer, Mingo, Monongalia, Nicholas, Ohio, Pocahontas, Putnam, Raleigh, Ritchie, Roane, Summers, Taylor, Tyler, Webster, Wirt and Wood.
In addition, OHSR provides support to sites in Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, as well as international locations in Trinidad and Tobago and the Federated States of Micronesia.
