Parkland, PCCI recognized for health technology innovation; Receives first Davies Public Health Award from HIMSS since 2012

DALLAS – Parkland Health, in collaboration with Dallas County Health & Human Services (DCHHS) and Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation (PCCI) announced they have earned the 2022 Public Health Davies Award from the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS). The award recognizes the outstanding achievement of organizations that have utilized healthcare information and technology to substantially improve patient outcomes and value within the public health arena. The collaborative group is the first Davies Public Health Award recipient recognized by HIMSS since 2012.

“We are honored to be recognized as the first Davies public health recipient in a decade. While it is a privilege to receive this award, the most noteworthy part of this recognition is the way everyone at Parkland, PCCI and the health department comes together to care for the residents of Dallas County,” said Fred Cerise, MD, MPH, Parkland’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “This collaborative effort showcases the many innovative ways that Parkland’s use of data improves the health of our patient population and continues to advance the health and well-being of the individuals and communities entrusted to our care.”

The award application highlighted the collaboration between Parkland, PCCI and DCHHS in creating semi-automated contact tracing and the development of Proximity Initiatives which helped identify potential individuals exposed to COVID and offer resources for medical and food insecurity needs. The team built electronic case reporting between the health department and Parkland along with improved public health reporting, equitable vaccination efforts using the Parkland/DCHHS Community Health Needs Assessment, PCCI’s Community Vulnerability Compass scores and geo-mapping and hot-spotting activities throughout the county for COVID testing and vaccination efforts.

HIMSS surveyors commended Parkland, PCCI and DCHHS for using information technology in clinically meaningful ways to facilitate population health through collaboration and innovation, and in working to hardwire processes for maintaining this collaboration into the future. The award showcases the thoughtful application of health information and technology to substantially improve clinical care delivery, patient outcomes and population health.

“Just as impressive, Parkland Health’s infrastructure supports a digital capacity that addresses the wellness, public health and health-related insecurities of the 2.6 million residents of Dallas County,” said Tom Leary, senior vice president and head of government relations at HIMSS. “It is a model for digitally transforming community health, and it provides a scalable blueprint for modernizing public and community health data for the entire healthcare ecosystem.”

The HIMSS Davies Public Health Award showcases organizations leveraging information and technology to enhance core public health services (contact tracing, syndromic disease surveillance reporting, electronic case reporting, notifiable disease surveillance, vital records reporting, electronic reportable laboratory results reporting and immunization registry reporting and queries) and drive faster, more actionable intelligence to improve community health.

To learn more about Parkland services, visit www.parklandhealth.org.

 

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DMagazine: This Locally Developed Dashboard Could Revolutionize Public Health

DMagazine features the work PCCI has contributed to the development of the Community Protection Dashboard released this week. (https://pcci1.wpengine.com/new-covid-19-analytics-dashboards-unveiled-by-consortium-of-healthcare-and-data-experts-tracks-levels-of-protection-against-the-virus-at-the-county-level/)

Developed in a partnership between the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), Civitas Networks for Health (Civitas), Cincinnati Children’s Hospital (Cincinnati Children’s) and the Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation (PCCI), the COVID-19 Community Protection Dashboard is built from antibody prevalence surveillance, case reports, and counts of people with vaccinations series and boosters within a community.

The dashboard, available at: https://www.civitasforhealth.org/community-protection-dashboard/; offers an aggregate Community Protection Index (CPI) for nearly all of the counties in U.S. in the form of a score that combines multiple factors. These factors include the percent of the population that has received a booster dose; the percent of the population that have completed an initial vaccine series; the percent of cumulative reported cases and the percent of presumed cases.

Click here to read the full story at DMagazine: https://www.dmagazine.com/healthcare-business/2022/08/this-locally-developed-dashboard-could-revolutionize-public-health/

 

New COVID-19 Analytics Dashboards Unveiled by Consortium of Healthcare and Data Experts Tracks Levels of Protection Against the Virus at the County Level

Data on COVID-19’s ever changing behavior and its potential impact at the county level is now available with the release of the national COVID-19 Community Protection Dashboard. Developed in a partnership between the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), Civitas Networks for Health (Civitas), Cincinnati Children’s Hospital (Cincinnati Children’s) and the Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation (PCCI), the COVID-19 Community Protection Dashboard is built from antibody prevalence surveillance, case reports, and counts of people with vaccinations series and boosters within a community.

The dashboard, available at: https://www.civitasforhealth.org/community-protection-dashboard/; offers an aggregate Community Protection Index (CPI) for nearly all of the counties in U.S. in the form of a score that combines multiple factors. These factors include the percent of the population that has received a booster dose; the percent of the population that have completed an initial vaccine series; the percent of cumulative reported cases and the percent of presumed cases.

The county-level CPI and core factors are available using a mouse-over interface on the dashboard’s map. The CPI is the score each county is given showing its population’s level of COVID-19 protection. A perfectly protected community would have a theoretical max score of 100. Currently observed national rates show an average CPI of 51.6. Nationally, the CPI range is between 41 to 83, showing a tremendous variation on the county-level. For example, Los Angeles County, Calif., that has a CPI of 70 based on its population being boosted, with 73 percent having completed its initial vaccine series as well as 30 percent reported infections and 63 presumed to be infected. Compare this to Fulton County, Ga., that reports a CPI of 59, due to lower boost percentage, 47, completed vaccination series, 47 and 20 percent reported cases and 73 percent presumed infections.

Dallas County has an overall index of 60, with 39% of population boosted.

“The goal of the analytics within the dashboard is to contextualize what it’s being observed locally to what is happening concurrently across surrounding counties, state and nation,” said Steve Miff, PhD, CEO and President at PCCI. “We intend for these insights to help provide a local dynamic vulnerability awareness with a national contextualization and use it to help identify emerging trends and forecast impact based on cross –region comparisons. Local cross-county/region collaboration and communication can also be enhanced with these additional insights.”

The collaboration of these healthcare and data analytics organizations has developed the dashboard with the goal of bringing together multiple sources of readily available COVID data and interpreting the information into a consistent and digestible way, including:

  • Taking into account the strong immunity from recent vaccination, but factoring the impact of waning immunity over time and the characteristics of the most recent variant
  • Weighting the extra protection from booster vaccination against new variants
  • Acknowledging the contribution from nature immunity
  • Including estimates of hybrid immunity

“There is a correlation with the CPI and recent hospitalization population rates, but the application is not a predictive model, it is a tool to foster community awareness that protecting a community from serious comorbidity and systemic stress on hospitalization requires vigilance,” said Dr. Holt Oliver, PCCI’s Vice President of Medical Informatics. “Even though the seroprevalence of protective antibodies is in the high 90%, as we go in to our first fall and winter infectious season with protection that for many Americans is waning, the value of continuing this conversation will be increasingly important.”

This effort has been part of a larger initiative led by IHI with its lead partner, Civitas.  In Phase 1 of the initiative, the IHI-led team implemented a rapid innovation cycle to learn from early experiences, scan emerging best practices and challenges, and develop a model for mounting a rapid local response to the U.S. vaccine crisis. Initial research conducted by IHI, The Health Collaborative, PCCI/Parkland Health and Cincinnati Children’s produced a vaccine implementation and delivery model as well as a set of change theory ideas for testing and scaling vaccine distribution in defined local populations.

In Phase 2, the initiative engaged in qualitative interviews with health departments and Health Information Exchanges (HIEs), which included Nebraska, North Carolina, Maryland, Texas and Indiana, to better understand how data has been used to support public health efforts during the Covid-19 pandemic. Through the work done in Phases 1 and 2, the COVID-19 Community Protection Dashboard prototype has been developed to support data sharing. A number of other deliverables and publications are in process and will be shared at various Civitas events, at the IHI Annual Conference and in upcoming journal articles and various publications.

“The availability of community-based tools, fed with local data, is key to local decision making. By mapping where pockets of vulnerability exist and how immunity likely changes over time, it becomes possible to target resources to better keep communities safe,” said Dr. David Hartley, an epidemiologist at Cincinnati Children’s. “This work illustrates how to do just that.”

About Civitas Networks for Health

Civitas Networks for Health is a mission- and member-driven organization dedicated to using health information exchange, health data and multi-stakeholder, cross-sector approaches to improve health. It was formed in October 2021 with the affiliation of the Strategic Health Information Exchange Collaborative (SHIEC) and the Network for Regional Healthcare Improvement (NRHI). Civitas Networks for Health counts more than one hundred regional and statewide health information exchanges (HIEs), regional health improvement collaboratives (RHICs), quality improvement organizations (QIOs) and all-payer claims databases (APCDs) as well as more than 50 affiliated organizations as members and reaches approximately 95 percent of the United States population. To learn more, please visit www.civitasforhealth.org.

About the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI)

The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) is an independent not-for-profit organization based in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. For 30 years, IHI has used improvement science to advance and sustain better outcomes in health and health systems across the world. IHI brings awareness of safety and quality to millions, catalyzes learning and the systematic improvement of care, develops solutions to previously intractable challenges, and mobilizes health systems, communities, regions, and nations to reduce harm and deaths. IHI collaborates with a growing community to spark bold, inventive ways to improve the health of individuals and populations. IHI generates optimism, harvests fresh ideas, and supports anyone, anywhere who wants to profoundly change health and health care for the better. Learn more at ihi.org

About Cincinnati Children’s

Cincinnati Children’s ranks among the top five in the nation in U.S. News & World Report’s 2021-22 listing of Best Children’s Hospitals. A nonprofit, academic medical center established in 1883, Cincinnati Children’s is one of the top three recipients of pediatric research grants from the National Institutes of Health. The medical center is internationally recognized for improving child health and transforming delivery of care through fully integrated, globally recognized research, education, and innovation. Additional information about technologies developed at Cincinnati Children’s may be found at Innovation.CincinnatiChildrens.org

About Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation

Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation (PCCI), founded in 2012, is celebrating a decade as a not-for-profit, healthcare innovation organization affiliated with Parkland Health. PCCI leverages clinical expertise, data science and social determinants of health to address the needs of vulnerable populations.

 

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PCCI Promotes Capria Dees to Vice President, Talent Management & Chief Diversity Officer

Dallas, Texas – The Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation (PCCI), which is celebrating its 10th anniversary of delivering groundbreaking healthcare results that have pioneered innovation, has announced the promotion of Capria S. Dees, RN, MN, PHR, to Vice President, Talent Management. She currently serves as the Chief Diversity Officer for the healthcare non-profit.

As PCCI’s Vice President of Talent Management and Chief Diversity Officer, she serves as the human resource business partner, employee relations coordinator, recruiter, strategic business partner, Engagement Committee leader and employee immigration liaison. She is also the organization’s advocate for diversity and inclusion and has implemented numerous programs and events to progress PCCI’s mission to build a model, diverse workplace.

Dees, who has been with PCCI since 2017, has held leadership roles in talent management for the last 20 years. She began her career with Parkland Health in December 1999 as a nurse recruiter.

“Capria’s value to PCCI cannot be overstated,” said Steve Miff, PCCI’s CEO and President. “She is incredibly knowledgeable, effective and most of all, caring. She is a key leader at PCCI ensuring we attract and grow the highest quality and most diverse team. She then makes sure our culture of inclusion helps each of our employees reach their potential in a positive, innovative environment. Our organization has reached its heights of excellence thanks to the efforts of leaders like Capria.”

One of Dees’ most notable accomplishments is helping to establish PCCI’s Sach Summer Scholars, one of the most prestigious internships in North Texas. The program, which started in 2019, offers opportunities for high school and college women to be emersed in the world of healthcare technology and data science. This is a showcase program for PCCI which will have its current class of interns present their program of work on August 11.

Capria earned a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing from Dillard University in New Orleans and a master’s degree in nursing from Louisiana State University Medical Center (New Orleans). She was honored as one of DFW’s Great 100 Nurses in 2017 and holds a certification in Human Resources. She is an active member of the Society for Human Resources Management and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority.

 PCCI’s 10th Year Anniversary

This year, PCCI is celebrating its 10th anniversary as it continues to be one of the most important healthcare research centers in Dallas. PCCI is the winner of a D CEO 2021 Nonprofit & Corporate Citizenship Award, D magazine & Dallas Innovates’ Most Innovative Healthcare Award in 2021 and is on the D CEO magazine Dallas500 list of top businesses for 2020 and 2021. For more information about PCCI’s anniversary and how to join its efforts to expand equitable access to care, go to: www.pccinnovation.org.

About Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation

Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation (PCCI), founded in 2012, is celebrating a decade as a not-for-profit, healthcare innovation organization affiliated with Parkland Health. PCCI leverages clinical expertise, data science and social determinants of health to address the needs of vulnerable populations.

 

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VIDEO: PCCI Celebrates the reopening of its office

PCCI is one of the best places to work in North Texas and recently its team celebrated the reopening of it office after more than two years of dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of our culture of collaboration, the team of data science and clinical experts excelled working remotely, but this gathering was a great opportunity to meet in person, and for some, to meet for the first time. Going forward, PCCI will operate in a hybrid manner with its office serving as a resource and home-base for its team.

Have a look at the video of the office reopening here: PCCI Culture – Office Reopening

ECRI Podcast: Fighting Healthcare Disparities l Equitable and Accessible Healthcare for All

This podcast episode is part of a series regarding the ECRI and the ISMP Patient Safety Organization’s (PSO) annual Deep Dive report.

The 2021 Deep Dive report focuses on issues of racial and ethnic disparities in healthcare. Research has repeatedly confirmed that members of racial and ethnic minority groups are more likely to experience disparities in care, including having an increased risk of being uninsured or underinsured, lacking access to care, and experiencing worse health outcomes for treatable and preventable conditions.

In this episode, our guests discuss their data-driven approach to identify and combat disparities and realize their vision of creating a Dallas County with equitable, accessible healthcare for all. Our first guest, Brett Moran, MD, is from Parkland Health & Hospital System, one of the country’s largest and most progressive safety-net hospitals. Our second guest, Steve Miff, PhD, is from Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation, a leading, non-profit, data science, artificial intelligence and innovation organization affiliated with Parkland Health & Hospital System.

Visit ECRI and the ISMP PSO to learn more or to request a demo. Download the executive brief of ECRI and the ISMP PSO’s Deep Dive, Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health and Healthcare today.

Click this link to listen to this important podcast:

https://smart-healthcare-safety.ecri.org/public/58/Smart-Healthcare-Safety-from-ECRI-af7a948d/c7f33164

PCCI Honors: D CEO’s Names PCCI as a Finalist for its Nonprofit and Corporate Citizenship Awards 2022

D CEO has named PCCI as a finalists in its fifth annual Nonprofit and Corporate Citizenship Awards, presented in partnership with the Communities Foundation of Texas. PCCI is a finalist for Organization of the Year (large). All finalists will be featured in D CEO’s August issue and recognized at an awards event in July, where the winners in each category will be revealed.

D CEO’s Names PCCI as a Finalist for its Nonprofit and Corporate Citizenship Awards 2022

Finalists Announced: D CEO’s Nonprofit and Corporate Citizenship Awards 2022

 

PCCI Celebrates its 10th Anniversary of Serving North Texas’ Most Vulnerable

Starting this month, the Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation (PCCI) is celebrating its 10th anniversary of delivering groundbreaking healthcare results that have pioneered innovative, actionable solutions that more effectively identify needs, prioritize services, empower providers and engage patients in Dallas County and beyond.

View a message from PCCI CEO Steve Miff

PCCI, a mission-driven organization with industry leading expertise in the practical applications of advanced data science and social determinants of health, was founded on May 14, 2012, as a strategic department spin-off from Parkland Health (Parkland). The goal was to provide the flexibility needed for PCCI to be a successful digital innovator in the tech sector so it can most effectively support Parkland’s mission and extend partnerships for impact more broadly. To date, PCCI has proven that through passion, creativity and collaboration, breakthrough innovation to advance the health of vulnerable communities using data-driven applications and social determinants of health (SDOH) is not only possible, but scalable and sustainable.

“From our singular approach to fighting COVID-19 to helping prevent pre-term births and supporting children with asthma, our steadfast mission has been to empower clinical decisions through advanced applications and uses of data. This is intended to tell the full story of every patient and our community’s health and act as a galvanizing force for customizing care at scale to support positive change,” said Steve Miff, CEO and President of PCCI. “Because of the passion of our team, the groundwork we have laid in our first decade and the ongoing collaboration and support of Parkland and many other North Texas partners, PCCI has been able to show how powerful data can be in revealing inequity and guiding actions to understand and support the communities that need care the most.”

During the first 10 years of its existence, PCCI has worked closely with some of the most notable healthcare leaders in Dallas and nationally. This includes its collaboration with Dallas County Health and Human Services, in its launch and implementation of COVID-19 public health initiatives to help minimize the pandemic’s harm on Dallas County and its residents.

“These past two years have shown how powerful data can be in revealing inequity in order to focus on those communities that need the most help. For example, our COVID-19 Proximity and Vulnerability Indices helped guide the County’s healthcare leaders to understand where to allocate resources for testing and vaccinations,” Miff said. “During our first decade, we have collaborated with philanthropic foundations, federal agencies, rural and urban health systems, payers, local municipalities, community organizations and others who share our common passion in finding the most impactful ways to address the needs of vulnerable populations. Investments in PCCI have resulted in millions of patients engaged with the impact producing millions of dollars in savings for providers and patients.”

As an affiliate of the Parkland system, PCCI has an ongoing focus on developing and supporting a wide variety of programs that have helped improve care and create efficiencies across the Parkland system.

“Parkland has received continual benefits from PCCI because it has been, achieving advanced innovations that are aligned with Parkland’s strategy,” said Fred Cerise, MD, President & CEO of Parkland and PCCI Board member. “PCCI has been uniquely positioned to support the Parkland community with innovative solutions that empower all of us. It is no exaggeration to assert that with its digital health strategy, Parkland will lead the way for better health for our patient population.”

For the remainder of 2022, PCCI will be celebrating its 10th anniversary with programs and activities highlighting its successes and future initiatives. For more information about PCCI’s anniversary and how to join its efforts to expand equitable access to care, go to: www.pccinnovation.org.

About Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation

Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation (PCCI), founded in 2012, is celebrating a decade a not-for-profit, healthcare innovation organization affiliated with Parkland Health. PCCI leverages clinical expertise, data science and social determinants of health to address the needs of vulnerable populations.

 

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HealthLeaders Podcast: PCCI’s Steve Miff – ACCESS TO CARE MAKES NO SENSE

Listen to PCCI’s CEO Steve Miff on the latest episode of HealthLeaders Exchange’ podcast “Healthcare Makes No Sense.” The podcast description:

If patient care stops when they leave the hospital, can healthcare truly provide access to care for patients where they are?
It makes no sense!

At least not to us anyway…
Steve Miff, President & CEO of PCCI, has been the humble superstar of Dallas’ underserved communities and his passion is apparent. He understands the power of using data analytics to identify social determinants, while also connecting communities to provide swift access to care for those who need it the most.

Perhaps with his drive and knowledge we can #makeitmakesense

Come and join our conversation!
Apple Podcasts: https://lnkd.in/dtV52kwg
Spotify: https://lnkd.in/d3kai3Hr
Google Podcasts: https://lnkd.in/dbvskzmu
Amazon Music: https://lnkd.in/dPumR8K5

“BUILDING CONNECTED COMMUNITIES OF CARE” BOOK EXCERPT CASE STUDY – Building CBO Partnerships

Following is an excerpt from PCCI’s book, “Building Connected Communities of Care: The Playbook For Streamlining Effective Coordination Between Medical And Community-Based Organizations.” This is a practical how-to guide for clinical, community, and government, population health leaders interested in building connected clinical-community (CCC) services.

This section is from Chapter 7, “Community Partners Track.” The Community Partners Track provides the requirements for the workflows and the tools needed for Community-Based Social Service Organizations aka Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) to achieve the goals of the Connected Communities of Care (CCC).

PCCI offers readiness assessments as a service for those organizations interested in building an SDOH-based CCC. Go here for more information: https://pcci1.wpengine.com/connected-communities-of-care/.

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Case Study: Building CBO Partnerships

A cornerstone of the CCC is the CBO. The community food pantries, homeless shelters, crisis centers, and transportation service providers are the lifeline for many vulnerable and underserved community residents. In addition to providing essential services, these organizations help the individuals cope with the challenges of daily life. For far too long, these organizations were excluded from the clinical care plan process for a host of reasons. Communities Foundation of Texas (CFT) (the initial philanthropic funder of the Dallas Information Exchange Portal [IEP]) and PCCI recognized the vital role these entities play in the health and well-being of the individuals seeking care at Parkland.

As part of the design of the Dallas IEP, PCCI began an ongoing effort to establish meaningful partnerships with local CBOs to foster their involvement in (and support of) the Dallas IEP, through linkages to each other and to Parkland. PCCI recognized early on that given the large geography covered by Dallas County, more than a couple CBOs would be needed to make the IEP robust and meaningful. In the past, efforts to engage CBOs typically involved recruitment at the individual CBO level, something that in the case of the IEP would likely prove problematic given the number needed. Instead, the PCCI team, with support from CFT, proposed a new approach of engaging the major
Sponsors of the CBOs, which in this case included the North Texas Food Bank (NTFB), which worked with many local food pantries, and the Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance (MDHA), a large umbrella organization coordinating services for dozens of smaller homeless shelters. By working directly with these umbrella organizations, PCCI only needed to execute two contracts rather than multiple contracts with the individual CBOs. The NTFB and the MDHA were then responsible for recruiting their members in sufficient numbers to increase the IEP’s scale.

While this approach proved successful, it did not remove the need for PCCI to “make the case” for the IEP with the NTFB and the MDHA. In addition to explaining how this program would involve NTFB’s food pantries and MDHA’s homeless shelters, it was imperative to make the business case for their involvement—how will this work benefit them and their members and what will be needed from the membership. In addition to helping improve the health and well-being of community residents, we found the following to be key incentives for CBO participation: (1) ability to provide funding to support the IEP or its usage, (2) enhanced reporting and analytic capability— either through the technology platform software itself or through PCCI analytical staff, (3) opportunity to participate in future research projects that would bring visibility to other sources of funding, and (4) greater operational efficiency.

Once the list of participating CBOs was shared with PCCI, the team installed the software at the participating sites, trained CBO staff, and communicated expectations and next steps. This process proved to be one of the critical success factors behind the initiative. CBO staff members that reported training as helpful and beneficial were more likely to use the IEP than those for whom training was deemed less helpful. Feedback from those receiving training suggested that two shorter training sessions (each 1.5 hours) and involving hands on practice exercises was far more helpful than one longer training session (3 hours). When PCCI staff members (1) set clear expectations of what was expected of the CBO and how the IEP was to be used and (2) reinforced that
Community Partners Track message through follow-up question and answer sessions and individual consultations, CBO use of the IEP (as it was intended to be used) was materially higher than where less emphasis was placed on expectations.

With the software installed and training completed, PCCI implemented several short pilot test periods to ensure that the technology was performing as expected and that the CBO staff felt comfortable in using it. These short pilot test periods, lasting from 2 to 4 weeks, were critical in a successful launch of the broader IEP implementation. As anticipated, the pilot work uncovered some software issues that needed to be addressed to ensure optimal use by the CBOs. The work also revealed some modifications to the CBO and clinical/CBO workflows that needed to be made. It is important to note that
all pilot testing was done without involving any patients or residents in the testing phase.

While the preparatory work helped to ensure a successful launch of the IEP both with Parkland and the participating CBOs (whose numbers grew appreciably after the launch due to continued recruitment into the network), we found that additional steps were needed to ensure ongoing success. Much like processes that are measured regularly as part of an improvement campaign and then ended abruptly when the campaign ends, we found that to optimize the effectiveness of the IEP and maintain its momentum, we needed to institute a continuous monitoring process with both the CBOs and Parkland. This ongoing involvement with the IEP Participants proved to be a greater time commitment than we had originally foreseen. While the frequency of challenges declined with the length of time since launch, we continually uncovered new issues or new opportunities to strengthen the initiative. This was especially true for the CBOs, where most staff members include volunteers and the turnover rate is quite high. Because of this, we employed a train the-trainer model, which proved largely effective. Again, most CBOs have a very small staff. Thus, the departure of a manager or experienced frontline worker often proved a major disruption to the use of the IEP. Constant contact with the CBOs (even when the number of CBO Participants approached 100) helped ensure that any challenges could be addressed as quickly and effectively as possible.

The key takeaway from the past five years of working with the CBO community in Dallas is that relationships matter, and that these relationships need constant, open and honest, two-way communication and nurturing to bring about success. We believe that these lessons apply far beyond this initiative.

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Authors:

Steve Miff, CEO and President of PCCI

Keith Kosel, Executive Advisor for PCCI