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Azara Healthcare 2021 Annual User Conference

May 4-6, 2021 | Virtual Event

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The Azara Healthcare 2021 Annual User Conference took place May 4-6, 2021. Sessions covered topics for all levels of users, new to advanced, and aimed to broaden and deepen the use of products and modules.

The Azara Healthcare's Annual User Conferences provide opportunities for users at practices, primary care associations, networks and their partners to gain timely education and training.

The conference has ended.
Contact conference@azarahealthcare.com with questions.

New for 2021:

  • Pre-conference sessions provide the opportunity to learn more about Azara, dig deeper into products and functionality, and ask your specific questions.
  • New networking environment enables you to interact with your peers and Azara staff based on the topic areas that interest you.
  • Play the new app game to win great prizes!

Don't Miss:

  • Seven educational sessions over three days
  • Poster presentations
  • Networking with peers and Azara staff
  • Product update
  • Video Contest
  • Fun and prizes!

Agenda

Day 1: May 4, 2021 | 1:00 - 4:35 PM EST

Pre-Conference: Azara Healthcare Overview

1:00 - 1:55 PM ET

Whether you’re a new client, a new user, or just someone looking to learn about the full history, focus, and capabilities of Azara, this is your one-stop session to learn about the company and our solutions. We’ll provide context for the history of the company, including our recent merger with SPH Analytics’ population health division, as well as review our solution portfolio. We’ll also share some client stories and our own perspective on the industry and our place within it.

Pre-Conference: Product Spotlights

1:00 - 1:55 PM ET

In this pre-conference session, Azara clients can participate in small group, product specific Q&A with an Azara expert. Whether you’re looking to ask a deep-level product question, or just want to learn a bit more about a new feature, this interactive experience is designed to address your needs in an easily accessible format. Take advantage of this opportunity to learn how to maximize your use of Azara solutions.

Pre-Conference: Ask the Azara Experts

1:00 - 1:55 PM ET

The Azara Support Team will be available for 15 minute appointments* to answer your questions and address issues. Please come prepared with patient examples to optimize your experience.

*Appointment scheduling will be available in the conference app.

Welcome and CEO Address

2:00 - 2:30 PM ET

Join us for a warm welcome from Azara Healthcare's CEO, Jeff Brandes, who will share some key achievements at Azara, client success stories, and his vision for the coming year.

Speaker:

Jeff Brandes
CEO
Azara Healthcare

Making IT Work: Tools for Evaluating Interventions and Outcomes in Population Health

2:40 - 3:35 PM ET

Effectiveness is the ability of an intervention to have a meaningful effect on patients in normal clinical conditions. Easily stated and understood, but not always so easy to measure. In fact, traditional quality measures applied to a specific program or population often don't tell the story—are the right interventions being applied, in the right time frame, by the right persons and was there an improvement in the patient's condition. This session will review new care effectiveness reporting tools in DRVS to help you evaluate the success of your programs at the practice and the patient level. Hear how one practice's vision for tracking the outcomes and investments in their specialty programs has helped them change and improve the care they're providing.

Speakers: 

Greg Augustine
Chief Product & Technology Officer
Azara Healthcare

Bridgette Baca, LCSW
Clinical Quality and Performance Improvement Coordinator
Presbyterian Medical Services

LuAnn Kimker, RN, BSN
VP of Client Innovation
Azara Healthcare

Stacey Palmer, LPCC
Director of Behavioral Health
Presbyterian Medical Services

Proving the Value of SDOH: Collecting Data and Moving the Needle on Outcomes with Resources and Disruptive Technology

3:40 - 4:35 PM ET

The many social determinants that impact a patient’s health are nothing new to care teams. What is new is the desire to quantify those factors, as well as the number of ways different services can be incorporated into traditional medical care. Learn how three community health centers, located in Michigan, Ohio and New York, have successfully engaged with public and private partnerships, deployed remote care teams, and focused on collecting social determinants of health data to break down barriers to care and improve outcomes for their patient populations. To support these efforts, we will explore how combining electronic health record data with screening results and demographic information in DRVS allows users to see a multi-faceted picture of a patient’s health, drive targeted improvements and increased patient access.

Speakers:

Samantha Fisher
Director of Quality and Patient Safety
Honor Community Health

Gabriela Gonzalez, MAS
Program Manager, Clinical Excellence & Innovation
Community Health Care Association of New York State

Dr. Tarika James, MD
Chief Medical Officer
Long Island Federally Qualified Health Center

Mercy Mbogori, MPA
Assistant Director, Clinical Excellence & Innovation
Community Health Care Association of New York State

Yomaira Mesquita
RN Manager
Long Island Federally Qualified Health Center

Why MIPS Still Matters

3:40 - 4:35 PM ET

Every year, providers are faced with a myriad of decisions around which measures to report, what level to report them, and which tools to use to do so. In this focused session, we will review the CMS MIPS program in detail, taking into account COVID special circumstances and changes for 2021.  We will look at how the program is changing and is likely to evolve over the course of 2022 and beyond then discuss specific strategies for avoiding penalties and how to reap the upside of high-quality performance.

Speakers:

Matt Fusan
SVP Product
Azara Healthcare

Beth Hickerson
Senior Consultant
Medical Advantage

Day 2: May 5, 2021 | 1:00 - 5:30 PM EST

Pre-Conference: Product Spotlights

1:00 - 1:55 PM ET

In this pre-conference session, Azara clients can participate in small group, product specific Q&A with an Azara expert. Whether you’re looking to ask a deep-level product question, or just want to learn a bit more about a new feature, this interactive experience is designed to address your needs in an easily accessible format. Take advantage of this opportunity to learn how to maximize your use of Azara solutions.

Pre-Conference: Ask the Azara Experts

1:00 - 1:55 PM ET

The Azara Support Team will be available for 15 minute appointments* to answer your questions and address issues. Please come prepared with patient examples to optimize your experience.

*Appointment scheduling will be available in the conference app.

Poster Presentations

2:00 - 2:25 PM ET

Poster Presentations from two Azara Healthcare clients using DRVS. The following posters will be presented: SDOH and Ending HIV in Rural Communities.

Speakers:

Zak Clare-Salzler
Data Analyst
Partnership Health

Brooke Lattimore, MBA
COO
The Health and Wellness Center, Inc.

Molly Wack
Client Success Coordinator
Azara Healthcare

The Text Messaging Outreach Revolution

2:30 - 3:25 PM ET

Patient outreach has historically been a challenging and resource heavy activity. Azara Patient Outreach (APO) helps ease the burden of manual outreach methods by introducing automated text messaging programs that identify patients using DRVS visit and care gap data. Many practices have payer contracts that include significant incentives to see each patient/member annually.

Missouri Primary Care Association identified APO as a way to efficiently reach patients to increase the number of health plan members with visits at their practices. Then, with the onset of the pandemic, they pivoted to their strategy to utilize APO at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic to connect with their patients and let them know what services were available. One of the Missouri practices, Affinia Healthcare will share their experience and success using APO.

Elsewhere in New York, Cornerstone Family Healthcare has also used APO extensively, but in a different incentive environment. They too will discuss the impacts they saw following implementation of APO, along with improvement of their workflows, and results.

Speakers: 

Leslie Lake, CPHQ, CHCEF, SSGBC, PM-LPC
Director of Quality
Affinity Healthcare

Shannon Bafaro
Director of Value Based Care
Missouri Primary Care Association

Roselle Delos Santos-Little, RN, PCMH-CEC
Director of Quality Improvement
Cornerstone Family Healthcare

Janette Keddy
Director of Client Success
Azara Healthcare

If You Got it, Flaunt it: Leveraging a Network's Vision for Results and Return on Investment with DRVS

3:30 - 4:25 PM ET

How does a network set a long term vision that moves their practices toward the quadruple aim and the value based care models needed to achieve that? The Indiana Primary Healthcare Association’s Health Center Controlled Network (Indiana Quality Improvement Network-IQIN) challenged themselves to strategically leverage their engagement with practices through effective use of messaging and tools to drive the network forward. IQIN created a Health IT Roadmap to lay the groundwork to guide Indiana practices in determining the tools and data needed to survive in this new environment. They then developed an adoption strategy focused on 1) understanding user engagement, 2) identifying potential training needs, 3) clinical quality measures, 4) expanding data collection and use of SDOH metrics, 5) optimizing fin-ops measures and 6) key transformation tools. This presentation will discuss the approach taken, the rollout and adoption process, project highlights, successes and their vision for moving forward.

Speakers:

Angela Boyer
COO
Indiana Primary Health Care Association

Nicole Hall, FNP
Clinical Director
Indiana Primary Health Care Association

Jasmine Page
Transformation Project Facilitator
Indiana Primary Health Care Association

LuAnn Kimker
VP of Client Innovation
Azara Healthcare

Virtual Networking

4:30 - 5:30 PM

Meet your peers, share your wisdom, ask questions and get to know Azara team members! Participants will be able to choose topic-based discussion forums facilitated by Azara experts in an exciting new virtual environment.

Day 3: May 6, 2021 | 1:00 - 4:35 PM EST

Pre-Conference: Product Spotlights

1:00 - 1:55 PM ET

In this pre-conference session, Azara clients can participate in small group, product specific Q&A with an Azara expert. Whether you’re looking to ask a deep-level product question, or just want to learn a bit more about a new feature, this interactive experience is designed to address your needs in an easily accessible format. Take advantage of this opportunity to learn how to maximize your use of Azara solutions.

Pre-Conference: Ask the Azara Experts

1:00 - 1:55 PM ET

The Azara Support Team will be available for 15 minute appointments* to answer your questions and address issues. Please come prepared with patient examples to optimize your experience.

*Appointment scheduling will be available in the conference app.

Care Management in the Wild: The Business Case and Tools in Action

2:00 - 2:55 PM ET

Care management has been identified as a key tool for value-based care because it promises to enable progress with patients who need more support to succeed. However, in many cases the funding or reimbursement structures have been missing or too complex. This session will review the business case for care management in primary care settings with conventional and unconventional applications for efficient use of Azara Care Management to maximize patient outcomes and billing opportunities. Hear from two practices utilizing ACM for a variety of applications, and from a state association which used grant-funding to seed the use of care management tools for genetic screening and testing for breast cancer and for overdose to action programs.

Speakers:

Katie Johnston, RN
Director of Nursing
HealthLinc

Lynn Thoma, PharmD
Director of Pharmacy
HealthLinc

Eva Lappin
Billing Director
MyCare Michigan

Kara Gee, RDH
Director of QI and Compliance
MyCare Michigan

Linda Comini, RN
Care Manager
MyCare Michigan

Cheryl Gildner
Data Manager
Michigan Primary Care Association

Heather Budd
EVP Clinical Transformation
Azara Healthcare

Product Update

3:05 - 4:00 PM ET

This session will review Azara's ever-growing suite of products designed to continue to meet the evolving needs of all its clients. We will highlight key product developments in 2020 and look ahead at the exciting product roadmap planned for 2021.

Speakers:

Greg Augustine
Chief Product & Technology Officer
Azara Healthcare

Matt Fusan
SVP Product
Azara Healthcare

Closing Remarks, Client Videos, and Awards

4:05 - 4:35 PM ET

Join us for the final session of the user conference which includes client video contest awards, Socio App award winners, general client awards, and messages about upcoming Azara events.

Speaker:

Jeff Brandes
CEO
Azara Healthcare

Video Contest Winners