Projects

See below additional examples of our work with federal and state government, foundations and other health organizations.

Who should participate? All staff from nursing homes in Michigan can benefit from attending: Administrators, Nurses, CNAs, Therapists, Social Workers, Activities, Dietary, and Housekeeping; as well as residents and their families.

What is required? Participation with WellbeingTREE is free.

Completed Sessions

(See the supporting materials below)

Bereavement and Grief Session Topics and Recordings:

Session One: “There is Wisdom in the Building”
A discussion of strategies for staff and residents to support each other after a death. View a recording of session one
Session Two: “Caring for Yourself”
Recognizing signs of grief in yourself, teaching residents to recognize signs of grief in themselves, and applying strategies to respond to those signs. View a recording of session two
Session Three: “Caring for Others”
Assisting others when a death occurs. View a recording of session three
Session Four: “It’s Always Too Soon, Until It’s Too Late”
Communication is key to ensuring residents, families, and staff know their roles during these events. View a recording of session four
Session Five: “Memorials”
Memorials are for the living and a good way to honor staff and remember residents. View a recording of session five

Social Isolation and Loneliness Topics and Recordings:

Session One: “Loneliness and Companionship”
Exploring the connection between social isolation and loneliness with our physical and mental health, addressing ways that can alleviate another's social isolation with care processes. View a recording of session one
Session Two: “Transforming Systems & Processes to Promote Connectedness”
Exploring ways that systems, processes, and practices can promote loneliness and isolation and can prevent finding desired companionship for residents. View a recording of session two
Session Three: "Empowering Resident Voice and Choice"
Delving into what empowerment means in the nursing home for both residents and staff and encouraging the use of observation and assessment to help homes identify practices that build empowerment. Valuable resources are shared that participants can use to carry their learning forward. View a recording of session three
Session Four: "Tackling Loneliness & Promoting Social Connection Among Nursing Home Residents"
Taking a deep dive into the definition of loneliness, we ask the question "How can nursing home residents feel so lonely when they are surrounded by others?" Examining risk factors that may increase the likelihood of loneliness and discussing health outcomes associated with loneliness. View a recording of session four
Session Five: "Effective Approaches for Reducing Loneliness in Nursing Home Residents"
Discussing strategies to mitigate social isolation and loneliness in nursing home residents including navigating family estrangement as well as using different types of technology and laughter therapy. View a recording of session five

Altarum and the University of Michigan are teaming up to help primary care providers effectively manage pain in older adults.

When prescribing opioids to older adults, it is important to balance pain relief and quality of life with the risk of opioid dependency. The ROMPO (Reframing Optimal Management of Pain and Opioids in Older Adults) project goal is to respond to the unique challenges providers face when caring for older (age 60+) patients who use opioids through a comprehensive educational program.

Implementing ROMPO into your practice will help reduce your older adult patients’ use of opioids while addressing pain in a more effective and sustainable manner.

Benefits of Participating

Improve outcomes for older adult patients experiencing pain
Learn to measure and document your patients’ pain using the PEG as part of a comprehensive approach to improving functionality and well-being
Incorporate an ambulatory pain order set into patients’ charts for easy access to medication and referral orders, as well as clinical decision support
Learn shared decision-making strategies to help empower older adults to become active participants in their medical care
Access prescriber support and clinician resources
Work with a dedicated Practice Facilitator who will provide customized technical assistance for your practice

Plus:

Earn free Continuing Medical Education (CME) and Maintenance of Certification (MOC) credits – up to 20, depending on eligibility
Participating practices earn up to $1000 in incentive payments after submission of data at three time points.

Eligible Providers Must:

Specialize in Internal Medicine, Family Medicine, or Geriatrics, and care for patients aged 60 and over.

Covid-19 has overextended many providers. At the same time, the heightened stress, loneliness, and anxiety faced by their patients exacerbates the ongoing opioid crisis. Addressing both challenges requires new tools and workflows.

To help, Altarum is offering free virtual cross training and ongoing technical assistance to equip providers with the skills to screen and refer their clients. This training will be scheduled at your convenience and will use fun, interactive activities, teach-backs, and role-playing to build on the knowledge and experience of participants, and enhance collaboration between the two organizations.

Because only about 50% of women and men with substance use disorders report using contraception and the number of pregnant women with opioid use disorder more than quadrupled in the past few years, our goal is to increase substance use disorder screenings and referrals in family planning clinics and increase family planning screening and referrals within substance use disorder services.

Participation Benefits

Financial compensation for sites. Participating sites will receive a stipend of $3,000.
Professional development. Participants will better understand the relationship between family planning and substance use disorder services and will engage more effectively with clients. Program participants will have the opportunity to earn up to 25 continuing medical education credits.¹
Ongoing technical assistance. Up to six months of individualized technical assistance, as well as opportunities for continued communication and collaboration between family planning and behavioral healthcare sites.
Compelling data to leverage for future opportunities. Participants will receive economic analysis results, including costs saved through achieving improved client outcomes and avoiding costly societal impacts of SUDs, unplanned pregnancies, and STIs.
Community engagement and service integration. Participants will be trained with other service providers in their community to foster relationships and better integrate services.

Participation Requirements

The program is available to any Title X funded family planning provider and any behavioral health provider that provides services or treatment for substance use disorder nationwide. Program expectations include:

Staff attendance at 6–8 hours of virtual training.
Provide data for all pre- and post-training evaluation measures. Altarum will provide technical assistance as needed to help participating organizations gather and submit data.
Participating clinical sites should be able to commit 3–7 staff members (depending on practice size) to attend the training, representing as many of the following roles as possible:
- Health Care/Direct Service Providers
- Medical Program/Agency Director
- Administrative/Front Desk Staff
- Medical Assistant
- Clinical Director
- Case Manager
- Recovery Support Services

How to Get Started

If you have any questions, please reach out to Jessica McDuff, Project Manager, at linkstudy@altarum.org.

¹Altarum is accredited by the Michigan State Medical Society to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

The Altarum designates this PI CME activity for a maximum of 20 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

An extraordinary number of youth are struggling with depression. What can you do to help? Join our new program, funded by the Michigan Health Endowment Fund, which provides rural practices in Michigan free telehealth technology, training, and clinical resources to help expand depression treatment. Watch our video to learn more!

If you are a rural provider in Michigan who treats adolescents, you are eligible to participate in the Responding to Adolescent Depression through Integration and Telemedicine (RAD-IT) program. It is designed to expand access to screening, treatment, and specialty referrals among the growing numbers of youth struggling with depression in rural areas. Without the ability to access care via telehealth, many rural adolescents will go untreated.

Benefits to Medical Practices

Participating in this program will not only help you expand your practice to more patients who need care—it will also prepare you for a post-Covid world where telehealth will be increasingly common. Our program offers the following benefits:

HIPAA-Compliant Telehealth equipment that is yours to keep. Practices may use the equipment and software provided (and/or their own equipment) to conduct telehealth visits with any of their patients. The DX80 equipment is yours to keep upon program completion. The WebEx platform is valid for 3 years. Together, the package is valued at ~$5,000.
Virtual training which eligible clinicians can participate in to receive 20-50 Continuing Medical Education (CME) and Maintenance of Certification (MOC) credits. Training includes three virtual trainings, four short case-based podcasts, and two Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycles. Learn more about our CME and MOC program.
An interactive Learning Management System with a curated toolbox of resources for clinicians, teens, and their parents. Resources include up-to-date information on subjects such as depression, bullying, substance use, self-harm, suicidality, and telehealth.
A dedicated facilitator assigned to each practice, who will help you: implement effective screening and treatment practices, use telehealth as a BH resource, collect and submit program data, develop and/or improve workflow and billing procedures, and implement follow-up and patient monitoring protocols.
Access to the Remote Care for Kids (RCK) Network, a telehealth network of over 100 licensed behavioral health providers who specialize in treating adolescents with depression. These clinicians are committed to the RAD-IT program and may be used for clinician-to-clinician consults, or as a treatment resource for your patients.
Tailored behavioral health referral guides that present up-to-date information on behavioral health clinicians near your practice. The guides use intuitive icons, so you can easily identify treatment modalities, insurance accepted, languages spoken, and more.

How to Get Started

Contact Haley McCrary, RAD-IT Project Manager at 734-545-6308, RAD-IT@altarum.org

With the ever-changing opioid epidemic, states need effective ways to coordinate their responses. Altarum’s learning management system (LMS) provides robust, easy-to-use tools to plan and manage opioid-related initiatives.

Known as the Comprehensive Opioid Response Effort (CORE), our solution provides the following capabilities and resources, all within the convenience of a single online portal:

Interactive trainings to help health care providers apply clinical recommendations
Self-directed trainings to educate a variety of disciplines about opioid use disorder (OUD) and its impact
Continuing education courses accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME)
Technical assistance in real-time from a multidisciplinary team of subject matter experts and coaches
Online collaboration tools such as affinity groups for teams with common interests
Facilitated discussions for peer-to-peer learning
A resource library populated with valuable research, best practices, and other tools
Data dashboards to monitor program progress

Deep Expertise in Substance Use Disorder (SUD) Drives the Web-Based Learning Management System

Altarum applies expertise and decades of experience in virtual learning and substance use disorder prevention, treatment, and recovery to guide all of the content within our CORE LMS. Users can participate in online self-directed learning as well as programs with individualized coaching. All content lives within the LMS, accessible from a single portal, ensuring your team a holistic and seamless experience.

Screenshot of CORE Learning Management System showing user dashboard for Detroit Opioid Prevention Collaborative While participating in trainings, users can easily monitor activity and progress.

CORE’s Four-Dimensional Framework

CORE is based on a four-dimensional framework that includes components designed to work in concert with one another: (1) Build Capacity; (2) Train; (3) Improve and Assure Quality; and (4) Measure, Analyze, Monitor, and Report.

States can further customize the CORE framework across three solution tiers: (1) Off-the-Shelf; (2) Tailored; and (3) Custom. Learn more about each tier.

Sharing Protected Health Information (PHI) is an important part of delivering quality health care. However, physical and behavioral health (BH) providers in Michigan still struggle to navigate the laws that govern the exchange of PHI, particularly when sharing BH information.

Figure 1: Prior to the start of our training, over half of Michigan providers participating needed help understanding the complexity of consent

In 2019, Altarum’s team of public health professionals, BH specialists, regulatory analysts, graphic designers, and implementation experts partnered with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) to increase information sharing between physical and BH providers.

With funding from the Michigan Health Endowment Fund, we created ‘The PHI Consent Tool’ and its companion video series to help payers and providers navigate confusing State and federal legislation: www.michigan.gov/PHIConsentTool.

We also updated MDHHS resources, delivered training webinars, answered stakeholder questions, and kept payers and providers informed about key legislative changes.

Finally, we launched a statewide survey and held dialogue sessions to reveal what motivates payers and providers to share BH information electronically, what stops them from sharing, and what resources they need to increase sharing.

Through this work, our program uncovered:

What organizations, job roles, and geographic regions need the most help,
What electronic systems are being used, which are not, and how that differs between organizations,
What motivates and stops people from sharing information electronically and what could help,
The areas where education, training, and resources are needed most, and what investments are likely to be most impactful.

Among behavioral health clinicians, physical health providers, payers, and healthcare leaders in Michigan, our program significantly increased:

Knowledge around rules and regulations that govern sharing PHI
Confidence in navigating the rules and regulations
Confidence in using the MDHHS 5515 standardized consent form,
Satisfaction with the resources available in MI to help navigate information sharing, and
Frequency of electronic information sharing.

Projects

TOPICS

WellbeingTREE Learning and Action Network (LAN)

Reframing Optimal Management of Pain and Opioids in Older Adults (ROMPO)

Are You a Family Planning or Substance Use Disorder Service Provider?

Are You a Rural Provider in Michigan?

Comprehensive Opioid Response Effort (CORE)

Breaking Down Barriers to Sharing Behavioral Health Information

Completed Sessions

Benefits of Participating

Participation Benefits

Participation Requirements

How to Get Started

Benefits to Medical Practices

How to Get Started

Deep Expertise in Substance Use Disorder (SUD) Drives the Web-Based Learning Management System

CORE’s Four-Dimensional Framework