Capsules

New Name for Twin Cities Medical Society

The group of Minnesota-based physicians and medical students formerly known as Twin Cities Medical Society has recently announced they will now be called Advocates for Better Health, or ABH. The new name and identity reflect an ongoing evolution in the organization’s mission and vision toward physician and medical student advocacy dedicated to healthier, more equitable communities. The new brand will help position ABH as a forward-looking organization at the heart of the changes in medicine and public health that are sorely needed to address health care’s most critical issues. “Our organization is wholly focused on initiatives that support public health, including the most impactful for people in our communities here in Minnesota and across the U.S. ABH initiatives will advance the health of our Minnesota communities while at the same time promote physician well-being,” said ABH President Zeke McKinney, MD, MHI, MPH. “As we move forward with our new vision, we’ll expand our issue advocacy and provide more ways for doctors and medical students to collaborate and grow in advocacy together.” Top priorities for ABH include initiatives to ban flavored commercial tobacco products and to promote healthier school meals. ABH will continue to support important programs including the Dr. Pete Dehnel Public Health Advocacy Fellowship. The Fellowship creates a connection between medicine and public health for medical students by offering opportunities for students to engage in local public health advocacy activities. “Our Board has worked hard as our organization continues our evolution as a new kind of medical society to meet the shifting realizes in public health,” said Becky Timm, CEO of ABH. “We selected Advocates for Better Health–ABH–as a reflection of the ongoing evolution of our mission and vision, and to further cement our organization’s whole focus on public health.” CEO Timm added that The TCMS Foundation, the organization’s philanthropic arm, will now become The ABH Foundation. ABH currently represents approximately 4,500 physicians and medical students living and working in Minnesota. All physicians who live or practice in Minnesota are warmly invited to join ABH. You can now join ABH independent of your other professional memberships, making it easy be a member of ABH. Physician membership dues are $300 annually and can be covered by CME dollars by most employers. For more information visit “http//www.metrodoctors.com”.

NIH Renews $48M Research Grant for Mayo

Mayo Clinic recently announced that its Center for Clinical and Translational Science has successfully renewed funding of its research grant from the National Institutes of Health National (NIH) for five more years. The funding award, totaling $48.2 million, is one of Mayo’s largest NIH grants, supporting research and education across the institution that will accelerate innovation to improve patient care and health for all people. “We are very pleased with this news and the continued support from the National Center for Clinical and Translational Sciences,” says Claudia Lucchinetti, M.D., director of Mayo’s Center for Clinical and Translational Science and principal investigator on the grant. “This will allow Mayo to continue to provide core resources, mentoring and training, and opportunities to develop innovative approaches and technologies for our investigators.” Vibrant clinical and translational research is fundamental to advancing Mayo Clinic’s core patient care mission. The Center for Clinical and Translational Science serves as the engine to accelerate the transformation of medical discoveries into treatments for unmet patient needs. The center also offers education programs designed to train and inspire the clinical and translational science workforce of the future. “Our clinical and translational science education programs attract learners from diverse backgrounds and at many different levels of experience,” says David Warner, M.D., director of education programs for the Center for Clinical and Translational Science. “When they graduate, they are well positioned to lead in their chosen fields of research and to bring the fruits of discovery back to their communities, improving health for all.” Mayo Clinic was one of 12 institutions to receive the NIH Clinical and Translational Science Award when the program began in 2006. Since then, the National Institutes of Health has renewed Mayo Clinic’s award three times, most recently in 2017. The Clinical and Translational Science Award program funds a national network of resources and education programs for clinical and translational research across the U.S. In the next five years, the Center for Clinical and Translational Science will transform clinical trials, digital health and rural health; strengthen community research partnerships and collaborations; train clinical trialists; enhance education and training programs; and expand and strengthen external collaborations. The goal is to accelerate medical research to improve patient care and health for all people.   

AMA Announces New 2023 CPT Code Set

Building on its efforts to reduce administrative tasks in medicine–a driver of burnout and a central pillar of its Recovery Plan for America’s Physicians–the American Medical Association recently released the 2023 Current Procedural Terminology (CPT®) code set. The new code set contains burden-reducing revisions to the codes and guidelines for most evaluation and management (E/M) services. Based on the 2021 revisions made to the E/M codes for office visit services, the new modifications make coding and documentation easier and more flexible for other E/M services, freeing physicians and care teams from time-wasting administrative tasks that are clinically irrelevant to providing high-quality care to patients. The new modification to the E/M codes extends to inpatient and observation care services, consultations, emergency department services, nursing facility services, home and residence services and prolonged services. “The process for coding and documenting almost all E/M services is now simpler and more flexible,” said AMA President Jack Resneck Jr., M.D. “We want to ensure that physicians and other users get the full benefit of the administrative relief from the E/M code revisions. The AMA is helping physicians and health care organizations prepare now for the E/M coding changes and offers authoritative resources to anticipate the operational, infrastructural and administrative workflow adjustments that will result from the pending transition.” Other changes include 225 new codes, 75 deletions and 93 revisions. With 10,969 codes that describe the medical procedures and services available to patients, the CPT code set continues to grow and evolve with the rapid pace of innovation in medical science and health technology. Changes to the CPT code set are considered through an open editorial process managed by the CPT Editorial Panel, an independent body convened by the AMA that collects broad input from the health care community and beyond to ensure CPT content reflects the coding and data-driven demands of a modern health care system. This rigorous editorial process keeps the CPT code set current with contemporary medical science and technology so it can fulfill its vital role as the trusted language of medicine today and the code to its future. Please visit the Implementing CPT Evaluation and Management (E/M) revisions web page for a complete list of AMA resources.

University of St. Thomas Opens Nursing School

The University of St. Thomas has recently welcomed 50 master’s in nursing students into its new Susan S. Morrison School of Nursing. The school becomes part of the Morrison Family College of Health, which includes the Department of Health and Exercise Science, the School of Social Work, and the Graduate School of Professional Psychology Next year, the program will expand to include undergraduate education in nursing. The new school is focused on preparing a diverse group of highly skilled professional nurses who are culturally responsive leaders working to improve whole person health and advance health equity. “Our School of Nursing has very distinct goals around closing health equity gaps,” said St. Thomas President Julie Sullivan. “We are dedicated to increasing access to culturally responsive care with a goal of enrolling at least 30% students of color and students from other underrepresented backgrounds. Our students will help to provide more care, to more people, in more diverse and rural communities.” At a time when nursing shortages are impacting all communities across the state, this new school is taking an innovative approach to nursing education through the utilization of high-tech simulation technology, including medical mannequins, and fully-simulated clinical/home care settings. “A St. Thomas graduate from the School of Nursing will know how to advocate for systems change,” said. MayKao Hang, founding dean of the Morrison Family College of Health. “They’ll be able to work well with others, understand how to use information to make good decisions and be comfortable caring for all.” The school will use simulation education to replace up to 50% of the 540 clinical hours that students are required to have in order to graduate. Students will have simulated clinical experiences where they will care for simulated patients within the Center of Simulation and conduct themselves as they would in any actual clinical environment. The School of Nursing at St. Thomas will follow criteria set forth by the Minnesota Board of Nursing to ensure that nursing programs that utilize simulation are providing a quality experience.

MDH Approves Fairview/ Acadia Mental Health Hospital

The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) has found that moving forward with a new, free-standing mental health hospital in Saint Paul is in the public interest due to a lack of inpatient mental health beds. Despite this conclusion, MDH acknowledged significant concerns about the new facility as proposed. Fairview Health Services and Acadia Healthcare have formed a partnership to finance and operate a new facility licensed for 144 inpatient beds at the former Bethesda Hospital site in St. Paul. MDH has determined that the project is in the public interest because it provides additional inpatient mental health beds in the midst of a bed capacity crisis. However, as documented by MDH’s analysis, the new stand-alone mental health hospital will not replace the comprehensive services previously offered at St. Joseph’s Hospital, which Fairview Health Services closed in July. There will be significant inpatient care gaps remaining after the establishment of the facility that other providers will need to fill. For example, the new facility lacks an emergency department for receiving patients undergoing a mental health crisis, and because it does not offer a full complement of medical care, it will only serve a subset of mental health patients. In addition, the facility is scheduled to operate under a leaner staffing model than is the norm nationally and in Minnesota. Similar concerns were also raised in public comments about the proposal. In finding the project in the public interest, a key element was the recognition that the Minnesota Legislature expects close, ongoing scrutiny of how the new facility will impact care delivery and the economics of inpatient mental health services in the community. As part of that legislation (Minnesota Session Laws of 2022, Regular Session, chapter 99), MDH has been directed to monitor patient and payer mix, transfers and patient flow for inpatient mental health care in the state. In addition to granting the conditional exception in 2022, the Minnesota Legislature made other changes to the hospital construction moratorium (Minnesota Statutes, section 144.551). One significant element creates a process for establishing additional inpatient mental health capacity without a public interest review. This process includes additional oversight activity and a report on the impact of any expanded inpatient mental health capacity in 2027. 

Allina to Acquire Part of Presbyterian Homes 

Presbyterian Homes & Services (PHS) and Allina Health have announced that Interlude Restorative Suites, part of PHS, will be acquired by Allina effective this November. The two organizations collaborated to establish Interlude Restorative Suites in 2015. While PHS has decided to sell its interest in the collaboration and to rebalance its care portfolio, Interlude-Plymouth will remain an integral part in its care continuum as a skilled nursing facility on the Plymouth (WestHealth) campus. PHS will continue to manage Interlude-Plymouth on a contract basis, with the goal of both organizations to ensure a smooth transition for guests and the excellent staff. “Allina Health and PHS are proud of our shared vision and collaboration in Interlude,” said Duane Larson, senior vice president of Operations at PHS. “The vision of Interlude was to introduce a new model for transitional care that combined clinical and therapeutic expertise with a soothing, hospitality-focused environment. The collaboration has achieved this vision, and we are proud of the teams who have accomplished this with purpose and excellence.” PHS has been taking steps to rebalance its care portfolio to increase its mix of independent living and right size its overall care center capacity where staffing shortages are greatest. The ownership transition involves two sites: Interlude-Fridley, located on the Allina Health Mercy Hospital-Unity campus, and Interlude-Plymouth, located on Allina’s Abbott Northwestern-WestHealth campus. Allina Health plans to repurpose the Interlude-Fridley building to expand its care model on the Mercy Hospital-Unity campus to best support the needs of the community. As that happens, PHS will be ramping down capacity at Interlude-Fridley ahead of the November transition. At the same time, PHS aims to retain its excellent team there and is ramping up capacity for both short term and long term care at its Langton Shores campus in Roseville. Emily Downing, MD, system clinical officer at Allina Health commented, “We are grateful for the dedication and outstanding work the staff at both Interlude locations have shown, including Interlude of Fridley’s role in COVID-19 recovery in 2020 when the site supported nearly 550 individuals who had been diagnosed with COVID-19. That commitment to care will remain a hallmark of Interlude well beyond November.”