Oklahoma Office of Rural Health

Top Flex Activities

Program Area: Support for Quality Improvement

The Oklahoma Office of Rural Health (OORH) provides support in the area of quality improvement through hosting quarterly Medicare Beneficiary Quality Improvement Project (MBQIP) webinars and onsite CART and QualityNet training. The OORH selects specialists for all programmatic areas through a bid process. These services include case review, survey readiness training, and mock surveys.

Program Area: Support for Financial and Operational Improvement

During the bid process, the OORH selects consultants to provide support in the area of financial and operational improvement through chargemaster reviews, operational analyses, and productivity analyses. Eligible CAHs are selected through completion of an annual stakeholder assessment and then matched back to Flex Monitoring Team financial data to prioritize need.

The OORH also provides two Medicare Boot Camp trainings per year.

Program Area: Support for Population Health Management and Emergency Medical Services Integration 

The OORH facilitates Community Health Needs Assessments (CHNAs). The CHNA process offered by the OORH fulfills the IRS requirements for 501 c3 facilities. All CAHs, regardless of 501 c3 status, are eligible to complete a CHNA facilitated by the OORH. 

On average, the OORH completed 5-10 CHNAs for rural hospitals each year. Through completion of a CHNA, rural hospitals facilitation engage with their community and collaborate with local partners to address pressing health needs of their residents.

The OORH partners with the Oklahoma State University, Masters of Public Health Program to provide program planning and program evaluation to assist communities in addressing identified needs. 

Please provide information about any efforts to assist CAHs/communities and partner organizations in the transition to value-based care.

The OORH strives to be a resource and a disseminator of information in the transition to value-based care. This is achieved through the quality projects previously described as well as the continued development of relationships and collaborations within the state and region.

Please provide information about network activities in your state to support Flex Program activities.

Over the past year, the OORH has started hosting regional CEO and Quality Director meetings. The goal of these meetings is to promote networking opportunities and develop cohort work groups for quality improvement activities. These meetings also provide the OORH with valuable information and feedback on activities and services to better support Oklahoma CAHs.

Please describe how your state Flex Program has enhanced its use of data in the past year.

The OORH continues to strive to be a resource for health, demographic and economic data for their stakeholders. The OORH utilizes data from the Critical Access Hospital Measurement and Performance Assessment System (CAHMPAS) for planning and prioritization purposes. One upcoming project the OORH is working on is the creation of comparative quality data with benchmarking to be provided to Oklahoma CAHs alongside their individual MBQIP Data Reports.

Do you have any hospitals interested in converting to CAH status?:

Program Statistics