dbMotion would like to invite you to a live webinar: Enabling the Patient Centered Medical Home through Health Information Exchange (HIE) & Interoperability with George Valko, MD, Vice Chair for Clinical Programs at Thomas Jefferson’s Department of Family and Community Medicine of Thomas Jefferson University.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

1:00 PM -2:00 PM (EST)

Where does the Medical Home care delivery model fit within the broader movement to reform healthcare through ARRA? Improving quality, decreasing errors and increasing patient and physician satisfaction are among the key ONC goals for 2015. Patient Centered Medical Home, supported by a solid foundation of interoperability—enabling connectivity to integrate, manage and use data—as practiced at Thomas Jefferson University, is making great strides in this direction.

George Valko, MD, Vice Chair for Clinical Programs at Thomas Jefferson’s Department of Family and Community Medicine; recognized by Philadelphia Magazine as one of the region's "Top Doc's," and named one of the "Best Doctors in America" by peer selection, will highlight examples of the approach his organization has adopted to meet NCQA’s highest designation by adopting innovative care practices that incorporate technologies for health information exchange – in order to bring the right information, at the right time, directly to the point of care.

You'll hear about:

• Overcoming fragmentation in healthcare with interoperability enabled PCMH
• The role ARRA and the stimulus package with regard to Medical Home
• Qualification criteria and financial incentives
• Improved quality, reduced errors and increased patient satisfaction

Key take-aways:

• Learning about the barriers to PCMH, connected healthcare and interoperability
• Understanding technology’s essential role in providing integrated and harmonized data throughout the continuum of care
• Steps you can take within your own enterprise – and beyond to the community at large – to achieve optimal PCMH buy-in

(If you are interested but the time is not suitable, please register and we will send you the recording after the webinar.)

Speaker Biography:

George Valko, MD
Vice-Chair for Clinical Programs at the Department of Family and Community Medicine
Thomas Jefferson University

George Valko, M.D. is the Gustave and Valla Amsterdam Professor of Family and Community Medicine and Vice-Chair for Clinical Programs at the Department of Family and Community Medicine of Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University. He is also the Medical Director of Jefferson Family Medicine Associates and the lead Physician Advocate for the Jefferson University Physicians Electronic Medical Record Project. He is a Diplomate of the American Board of Family Medicine and registered with the American Society of Clinical Pathologists. He received his B.S. degree in Biology from Juniata College in Huntingdon, PA and his M.D. degree from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia where he also completed his residency training. 

He is a Fellow of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, a member the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine and other organizations, including Bridging the Gaps, a consortium of all Philadelphia medical schools that links the training of health and social service professionals with the provision of health-related services for underserved and economically disadvantaged populations. In addition to his service on multiple committees at Jefferson, which includes Chair of the Professorial Faculty Advisory Committee and President-elect of the Jefferson Medical College Alumni Association, he was also a subcommittee member to the Chronic Care Commission of the Pennsylvania Governor’s Health Care Reform Commission.

Dr.Valko has lectured extensively on improving the clinical office environment for patient care and physician satisfaction as well as on resident teaching. He is known nationally for successfully implementing open access scheduling in an academic medical department and has lead workshops for other academic departments that are moving toward that goal. Along with implementing the electronic medical record at Jefferson, the improvements made in the Jefferson clinical office have earned his department the NCQA Patient Centered Medical Home designation, the highest ranking from that organization.  He is the author of several medical journal and book articles and is a peer reviewer for multiple medical journals as well as on the Editorial Board of the American Journal of Medical Quality.  

His devotion to patient care and love of teaching are intertwined and have earned him honors such as the Jefferson Family and Community Medicine Residency Teaching Award and the JeffHOPE award for precepting at the Jefferson Medical College student-run homeless shelter clinics, as well as the “Top Doc” designation from  Philadelphia Magazine and “Best Doctors in America” from his peers.