142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition

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Innovative Community Organizing for ACA Outreach and Enrollment

142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition (November 15 - November 19, 2014): http://www.apha.org/events-and-meetings/annual
Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Benjamin Hernandez, MBA , Director's Office, Houston Department of Health and Human Services, Houston, TX
Maria DeLaCruz, MPA , Director's Office, Houston Department of Health and Human Services, Houston, TX
According to the Census Bureau, Texas has the highest rate of uninsured in the nation. The Houston and surrounding areas have nearly 1.4 million uninsured people. Providing ACA outreach and enrollment services to a large urban population required innovative collaboration and data sharing approaches. The Houston Department of Health and Human Services (HDHHS) adapted a component of the National Incident Management System (NIMS) to provide a community management structure for ACA outreach and enrollment activities. Partner agencies across the area joined the collaborative effort and created a unified strategy and data reporting. With the use of inexpensive web-based and data sharing tools, the collaborative members get access to daily activity reports for their organization as well as the collaborative. The information gathered gives a near real-time pulse of the activities across the area to improve resource allocation and decision making. This innovative approach has gathered national attention by media outlets, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the White House.

Learning Areas:

Administer health education strategies, interventions and programs
Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs
Provision of health care to the public
Public health administration or related administration

Learning Objectives:
Describe an effective process for organizing community partners for ACA outreach and enrollment. Demonstrate how to adapt public health preparedness incident management approaches (Incident Command System) for organizing community partners. Explain effective use of inexpensive web-based data collection tools to measure ACA outreach and enrollment efforts. Formulate a community level strategy that supports ACA outreach, enrollment, and collaboration.

Keyword(s): Affordable Care Act, Planning

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am an executive at the Houston Department of Health and Human Services responsible for overseeing the department's finances, facilities, and operational performance to improve decision-making in our public health practice. I am engaged in leading the Affordable Care Act efforts throughout Houston's 13 county region and managing the data collection and reporting for the Enroll Gulf Coast Health Insurance Marketplace Collaborative.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

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