The Department of Health and Human Services releases its 2024-2025 Roadmap
Department of Health and Human Services Commissioner Lori Weaver talks about the new DHHS Roadmap 2024-2025, which outlines the plan the DHHS developed with input from many stakeholders (people involved with or affected by the Roadmap) to help improve the state of health for all Granite Staters. Visit dhhs.nh.gov (get to the Roadmap via News & Events).
Explain ‘Mission Zero’ and how the Roadmap will address Emergency Department boarding?
Mission Zero is the Department’s commitment to eliminating boarding in an Emergency Department. … It used to be, years ago, that we would have 40 or 50 people sitting in any given day waiting to find a bed for psychiatric care. … the beginning of this year in January of ’24, we were at about 4 1/2 days sitting in an emergency department waiting for a bed … now we’re down to 2 1/2 days [in May]. … That basically means that you’ll have people come in that will need that level of care and rather than waiting weeks and months they’re actually getting care within an average of 2 1/2 days at this point.
What are school-based services for children enrolled in Medicaid and how will they be strengthened through the Roadmap?
We have a lot of school counselors who provide services to youth that may be having some issues. That could be mental health counseling, that could be substance-use disorder counseling, could be any sort of peer-related issue. The schools need a mechanism to be able to, for those students that have Medicaid, to be able to bill Medicaid for that service….The Department was able to secure a grant to be able to build an administrative infrastructure. … This process will automate and streamline those processes for schools to be able to bill Medicaid and then get reimbursed to be able to provide that service so the schools aren’t losing any money …. The commitment here is really about investing in the infrastructure so that it’s self-sustaining and lasts for a while.
Would you mind expanding on the Healthy Mothers/Healthy Babies initiative and why that’s important in the Roadmap?
We know that our maternal health definitely stands out as a need in the state of New Hampshire. What we do is we put a lot of money into prevention and being able to get moms into prenatal care as soon as they’re eligible in their first trimester and then caring throughout … and then obviously post-delivery care. We know that if we put our money and time into prevention, then we’re seeing less on the other end of having to continuously treat. It’s putting the money in and the time in to be able to have that healthy mom and healthy baby and then sustaining as a community member not necessarily having to go in for needs after that. Maternal mortality rates for the state of New Hampshire are pretty high, as they are nationwide, so we’re looking to reduce those maternal mortality rates as well.
Why is it that the maternal mortality rate is so high across the country and in New Hampshire?
I think when we’re looking at equity of care that oftentimes we will see a lot of our diverse populations don’t have the same access to maternal care that some other parts of our population do. It’s really making sure that no matter who you are in the state of New Hampshire that you have access to that care. I think in New Hampshire we’re a small enough state that we can set that as a goal and I think make a dent in it.
Could you expand on the ‘building a system of care for healthy aging’ initiative?
… Basically, taking a lot of the parts of our services that serve seniors and working to update, upgrade, automate and making sure that seniors have access to services. It goes back to a lot of the same things about community-based services about trying to keep folks within communities rather than having to be in institutional care, so that means having a robust system that can get seniors’ needs met before having to go into a nursing facility, say, that they could actually get their care at home or in a community-based setting. We have things like our service link centers, which I think in our report is called the ‘aging and disability resource centers.’ Those are some of the first stops that our folks in the long-term care system will go to to get help. It’s making sure that wherever you are in the state you could go to one of these centers and clearly understand what … resources were available to you or your family members.
In what ways will customer service be improved?
When you think about the Department from customer service, we have a couple of different customers. … Oftentimes you have to fill out a form to see if you’re eligible for a service. We’re committed to making sure that there’s efficiency and expediency in those processes … The Department is so large, you could come in, Zach, and you might think you need one service from here but all of a sudden you find out you need a couple of other services from the Department. …You shouldn’t have to go knock on 10 doors to figure out how are you going to be able to get these services. You should knock on one door and then be able to have a care plan developed for you. So there’s that side of it. Our customers are also our providers, so we get a lot of federal money and [with] the money that we have we do contracts with providers, then those providers will go out and provide a service. Let’s just say, like a residential care home for the developmentally disabled, we would give money to a provider to stand up that service. That provider is also our customer, so we want to make it easier for them to do business with us, right. We want to be a better business partner. … We also want to be able to have a financial payment model that works for providers so that they’re able to be paid in a timely and sustainable way.
Is there an aspect of the Roadmap you’d like to expand on that you haven’t been asked about or something particular in the Roadmap you think is exciting to talk about?
The one thing you didn’t ask me about, really, was the commitment one, which is People and Culture. That’s our focus internally. … If we’re taking care of our staff and our workforce, it’s going to show up in the work … we’re going to have better customer service skills from our staff if we’re able to create an environment in the Department where people want to be, can grow and learn …. The Roadmap, really, is about the Department being able to say to all of those stakeholders that I just mentioned, who we are and what we do. —Zachary Lewis
Featured image: Lori Weaver. Courtesy photo.
