UMTRC Awards

Leadership Award: Felicia Menear, LaPorte Osteopathic Family Practice 
This award recognizes an outstanding individual, organization, company, governmental unit or other entity that has demonstrated an ability to guide and motivate others in a direction that contributes to the advancement of telehealth in the UMTRC region. This awardee has shown an exemplary ability to lead in a positive manner and direction to ensure better health outcomes for rural and underserved populations. Even in the face of adversity, this awardee has succeeded in guiding his or her organization to improve access to healthcare services and/or addressing an unmet need that has led to improved health outcomes and/or quality of life for those residing in the UMTRC region.

Awarded to: Felicia Menear, nominated by Dr. Clayton Alexander
Felicia Menear is a certified coder and office manager for the LaPorte Osteopathic Family Practice in Laporte county, Indiana, shut down when COVID hit, and quickly had to figure out how to provide care for those in need and keep those vulnerable safe. The office didn’t have a telehealth program. Felicia jumped in and took the initiative to research every aspect of telehealth. She educated herself, trained the staff, and ensured the office was in compliance with daily changing laws and regulations and insurance guidelines. She also played the role of troubleshooter, and worked tirelessly to education patients and assist them with the telehealth transition. During the pandemic she expanded the telehealth program to add remote patient monitoring.

Innovation Award: Henry Ford Health System Virtual Care Department  This award recognizes an outstanding individual, organization, company, governmental unit or other entity that contributes to the innovation and advancement of telehealth in the UMTRC region. This awardee’s dedication to providing innovative solutions to overcoming barriers and/or addressing an unmet need that has led to improved health outcomes and/or quality of life for those residing in the UMTRC region.

Awarded to: Henry Ford Health System Virtual Care Department, accepted by Ally Hunter and Marie Lee 

Virtual Care began as a health system project, evolving into a single person department in 2015, growing to a team of 7 in 2020. The pandemic challenged and stretched the talents of the team, as well as the technology, to provide quality access to care, even when medical centers were closed and patients were unable to come in person for medical care. The Virtual Care department exemplifies team spirit, is known throughout the health system for collaboration, and continues to evolve the technology and workflows to best meet the customers’ needs – where, when, and how they want to interact with Henry Ford Health System.

The work we completed prior to the pandemic, including our collaborations with various health system partners, allowed us to be ready for the exponential growth experienced starting in March 2020. Our department worked to standardize the use of technology across the health system, using a repeatable project management process to assess, build, implement, and grow both synchronous and asynchronous programs across the health system. When in-person clinic visits became unavailable and/or undesirable during the height of the pandemic, the health system was able to quickly transition nearly all aspects of care (primary care and specialty services) to some form of virtual access for patients to be able to connect to their providers.

The Henry Ford Health System Virtual Care Department, through their outstanding collaborative efforts, have improved the use and adoption of technology. A continuous improvement focus has led to streamlined processes as a result of their relationships with people, both inside the organization as well as externally. End users are our focus to ensure ease of use, improved access to care, and improved provider and patient experience. Keeping providers and patients safe during pandemic was a high priority, and our established relationships allowed Virtual Care to quickly scale up to meet explosive expansion of virtual options for organization. The department’s positive leadership, support, and training, allowed the health system to transcend boundaries to care, leading in many cases to improved health outcomes and improved quality of life. “All for you” is our guiding phrase. The Henry Ford Health System Virtual Care Department is a part of a larger team providing safe, effective, quality care alternatives accomplished through collaboration, project management, change management, creativity, and flexibility.

Collaboration Award: Telehealth Delivery Trainings for Women’s Health Providers in Ohio (accepted on their behalf by Becky Sanders) 

This award recognizes an outstanding individual, organization, company, governmental unit or other entity that has worked jointly with others to achieve a common goal towards increasing access to healthcare via telehealth in the UMTRC region. This awardee demonstrates a team spirit that has motivated others to work with a positive attitude and synergy to transcend boundaries to ensure progress towards improving access to healthcare services and/or addressing an unmet need that has led to improved health outcomes and/or quality of life for those residing in the UMTRC region.

Awarded to: Telehealth Delivery Trainings for Women’s Health Providers in Ohio. This award is being accepted on behalf of James Read and Dr. Cynthia Shellhaas by Becky Sanders  

The purpose of this project is to enhance patient safety, improve maternal health, and reduce maternal mortality/morbidity by providing training in telehealth use and best practices to women’s health care providers.  This project was made possible by funding from the State Maternal Health Innovation (MHI) grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). Collaborators on this project include the following:

• The Ohio Pregnancy-Associated Mortality Review (PAMR) which has been operating continuously in Ohio since 2010.
• The Ohio Department of Health (ODH)
• The Upper Midwest Telehealth Resource Center (UMTRC)
• Dr. Megan Gregory and Dr. Saurabh Rahurkar from Ohio State University’s Department of Biomedical Informatics and The Center for the Advancement of Team Science, Analytics, and Systems Thinking in Health Services and Implementation Science Research (CATALYST) were engaged to develop the assessment tools and evaluation plan for the project. These include pre- & post-tests, a 3 month follow up, and a 6 month follow up for each training.
• The Clinical Skills Education and Assessment Center (CSEAC), under the direction of James Read, which uses simulation and standardized patient encounters to practice patient interactions and shared decision-making in vulnerable populations of pregnant and postpartum women.
• Dr. Cynthia Shellhaas, from the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology
• Dr. Sheryl Pfeil, from the Division of Gastroenterology, are both experienced in using medical simulation as a training method including debriefing strategies and serve as co-directors for the project.