Healthy Memphis Common Table
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Welcome!

Mission: The Healthy Memphis Common Table is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose mission is to support and encourage people working together to improve the health of everyone in our Mid-South community.
 
HealthyMemphis.org is a web service of The Healthy Memphis Common Table that helps you take charge of your own health. You will also find information to help citizens, health care providers, and other Community Partner organizations work together to improve everyone’s health.
 
The Healthy Memphis Common Table works to improve both health and health care in the Mid-South, an area about 150 miles surrounding Memphis. We bring businesses, governments, schools, health care providers, media, fitness centers, faith-based and other organizations around a “common table” to address community health problems that no one organization can overcome alone.

Get Involved!

Click here to join the Healthy Memphis Common Table as a Community Partner!

Initiatives

Our first Healthy Memphis Common Table initiative focuses on reversing the increase in obesity and diabetes by 2008.
 
Our second initiative "Aligning Forces for Quality:  The Regional Market Project" is being conducted in cooperation with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and many Memphis-area Community Partners. This initiative has been significantly expanded as of June 5, 2008 to tie quality improvement in hospital inpatient care to our ambulatory care efforts.  Our goals include dramatic improvement of the quality of care for chronic diseases and reduction in disparities in care in both ambulatory and inpatient settings. Memphis is one of 14 pilot communities in the U.S. working to engage consumers, providers and payers to improve quality through public reporting of performance on key measures of outpatient quality of care.  We also hope to educate consumers about the critical components of high quality care so they can seek high quality health care for themselves and better take control of their health.  The total grant funding for the Healthy Memphis Common Table through mid-2011 for Memphis is about $1.6 million. For more details, visit our news page at www.healthymemphis.org/news/

    "Memphis Quality Initiative" (http://www.memphisquality.org) is our third initiative. MQI is a collaboration of Memphis-area hospitals' administrators, physicians, nurses, and pharmacists -- partnering, developing, and implementing citywide, noncompetitive quality improvement initiatives. MQI recently became tied to the Healthy Memphis Common Table.  The Common Table collaborates closely with QSource, a valuable Community Partner, in this effort.

The goal of MQI is to be catalyst, a resource, and a capacity-builder for health care quality improvement in the Mid-South.  By working together, member hospitals strive to provide the right care to every patient, every time. Our goals?:

  • Pursuing perfection by providing care that is Safe, Timely, Effective, Efficient, Equitable, and Patient-Centered (STEEEP)
  • Encouraging patient-centered customized care while discouraging unwarranted variation
  • Improving care by sharing quality initiatives among medical and administrative professionals.

Activity as a U.S. Health & Human Services designated Chartered Value Exchange is our newest initiative.With this initiative, we strive to find ways to help buyers of health care find the best value for their health care dollar. Information is the key! We are working to develop easy-to-use and understand systems to provide fair, accurate, and useful quality data along with price information. We want consumers, referring physicians and buyers of care to have the same kind of tools (price and service features) that people have grown to expect when they buy other types of services.

With our CVE designation, we will have access to additional information such as Medicare data to ensure that our quality information is more complete. Memphis health care leaders working on this project will also have access to HHS experts and new tools.

Get Involved!

There are many ways you may get involved with Healthy Memphis Common Table.

We have started obesity and diabetes projects based on the ideas and comments of over 1,100 citizens. Help reverse the epidemic of obesity and diabetes in Memphis throughout 2008!  Working groups and project teams have formed in the following sectors:

  • Community Awareness & Consumer Education
  • Education/Schools
  • Faith & Community Service Providers
  • Businesses
  • Health Care Community (hospitals, MDs, nurses, dentists, allied health)
  • Policy & Governmental Advocacy.Find out how you can help make a Healthy Memphis. 

The Aligning Forces for Quality Initiative (AF4Q) has three working groups have been established.

  • Consumer Engagement
  • Performance Measurement & Public Reporting
  • Quality Improvement

The Memphis Quality Initiative is a new initiative associated with the Healthy Memphis Common Table. QSource is a valuable Community Partner in this effort. MQI focuses on quality improvement in hospitals.  Committees include:

  • Memphis Physician Quality Improvement (QI) Team
  • Memphis Chief Quality Officer QI Team
  • Memphis Nursing Officer QI Team
  • Memphis Administrator QI Team
  • Memphis Pharmacy Director QI Team
  • Memphis Information Technologists Team

The Chartered Value Exchange initiative is developing working groups to focus on the needs and involvment of various stakeholders, including:

  • Consumers
  • Professional providers
    • Physicians
    • Nurses
    • Associations of these providers
  • Health plans
  • Payers (businesses & employers)
  • Quality improvement, data analysts and records experts
  • Other users or influencers of health status and records (e.g., pharmacies, other medical professionals, public health officials)
  • Hospitals

Healthy Memphis Common Table, PO BOX 382898, Germantown, TN  38183-2898 Phone: 901-748-1122  Fax: 901-748-8880

 

Current Activities

1st Executive Director Begins Jan. 12, 2009

Healthy Memphis Common Table (HMCT) introduced its first Executive Director, Renee' Frazier, FACHE, MHSA, to the Mid-South region at a neighborhood block party hosted by Healthy Memphis board member Al Wooton at his business AJW Clothier & Day Spa in Midtown Memphis on Saturday, September 27, 2008.  Mayor A.C. Wharton joined Board Chair Denise Bollheimer to introduce Ms. Frazier to the audience and applaud neighborhood merchants for enhancing Midtown's Belvedere triangle park at the corner of Madison Avenue at Belvedere.

Before joining the Healthy Memphis Common Table, Ms. Frazier served as the regional SVP and executive officer of VHA Pennsylvania. Ms. Frazier will begin HMCT official duties January 12, 2009 but she will be working with Common Table leadership throughout the fall in preparation for expanded Mid-South health improvement activities in 2009. Ms. Frazier is relocating to Collierville, Tennessee from Pittsburgh, PA. For more information click here.

RWJF grant opportunity to enhance skills of 30 Mid-South community health leaders

RWJF will select up to 30 fellows for leadership development grants in a 16-mo. personal development program. Online grant applications for Mid-South leaders (W.TN., E.Ark., N.MS) will be accepted between Dec. 18, 2009–Feb. 26, 2010. Grants include travel expenses. Click here for details.

Healthy Memphis Common Table One of 14 Programs Selected for $300 Million Nationwide Effort to Dramatically Improve Quality of U.S. Health Care

Great news for the Mid-South! On June 5, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) announced a major new investment in the Healthy Memphis Common Table and 13 other community-based programs around the country as part of a $300 million initiative to spearhead health-quality reforms through regional collaboratives.

Known as Aligning Forces for Quality, RWJF’s initiative is the largest effort of its kind ever undertaken by a U.S. philanthropy. An unprecedented commitment of resources, expertise and training, it brings together patients, health care providers and payers to turn proven practices for improving quality into real results. It will lift the overall quality of health care, reduce racial disparities and provide models for national reform.

A project worth supporting:  editorial about this project
The Commercial Appeal 

Healthy Memphis Common Table was selected for the initiative in a competitive process to find the states and communities best positioned to make fundamental and cutting-edge changes to rebuild their health care systems. In addition to providing expertise, technical assistance and training from national experts, RWJF will provide Healthy Memphis Common Table with more than $1 million over three years and access to additional grants for specific projects.

“Everyone in the health care system wants to deliver high-quality care, but the fragmented nature of our health care markets and delivery systems often prevents key players from working together toward that common goal,” said Denise Bollheimer, chair – Healthy Memphis Common Table. “We are excited to be selected for this initiative, so we can bring all the parties together – those who get care, give care and pay for care – to drive real improvements in Memphis.”  

The report reveals opportunities to improve the quality of care locally. In Memphis, four in 10 women insured by Medicare are not getting recommended mammograms, and nearly two in 10 patients with diabetes are not getting crucial blood tests. The rate of amputations due to complications from peripheral vascular disease and diabetes is on par with the national average, and the amputation rate is far higher among African Americans than among whites.

For more information about AF4Q, visit our news page and RWJF: 

Shelby County has a long way to go in health improvement

Shelby County is in the bottom fourth of Tennessee's 95 counties a recent report by the Tennessee Institute of Public Health.  The report shows we must address  the ties among education, literacy, poverty, environment, diet, children in single-parent households, crime, access to care, personal habits and behavior. Visit: Tennessee County Health Rankings 2007.  Shelby County can be found on P. 92.

U.S. Officials Share Importance of Electronic Health Records in the Mid-South & US

Health & Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt
Awards first U.S. Chartered Value Exchange designation to
Healthy Memphis Common Table
Thursday, January 31, 2007
To learn more, click here.

Family Health ...Take Charge!
Healthy Memphis Common Table
& The Commercial Appeal
partner on health education

The Commercial Appeal continues its excellent "Healthy Memphis" campaign with the "Family Health...Take Charge!" series. On Mondays there are health articles on page 3 of the "M" Health & Fitness Section where you will find helpful information on what you should know and what you should do about health matters. Click here to visit The Commercial Appeal website.

Half of Memphians report health literacy problems

The "2007 Memphis Health Literacy Survey" shows that only only 47% of Mid-South adults could correctly identify one or more of the essential services for adults to get from their doctors.  Citizens also said they lacked resources to make wise choices for care.  See summary report.

Healthy Memphis Common Table