Activate Lilypad

A purple, green, and blue flower to the left of the word Lilypad

 

Every Iowa rural health clinic has access, at no cost, to the Lilypad benchmarking and quality improvement tools.  We encourage all Iowa RHCs to take advantage of this grant-funded opportunity to utilize the POND benchmarking system to compare and evaluate performance and the LAKE platform to facilitate quality improvement projects.

About Lilypad

Lilypad is a Maine-based analytics firm founded in 2011 to provide mobile and web-based performance improvement applications for healthcare provider organizations and State Offices of Rural Health. Lilypad adheres to a core business principle that accountable leaders require sound data and simple, innovative tools to be successful in their roles within the emerging value-based care delivery environment. More information about Lilypad is available on the IARHC website.  

Quality Improvement Programs 

Over the last year, Lilypad has worked to develop and implement a formal quality improvement project for provider-based rural health clinics (PB-RHC) in Iowa. The goal of the project is to help PB-RHCs improve the quality of care for their patients, simplify and streamline transitions of care between primary care and inpatient services, and strengthen chronic disease management processes. Lilypad has worked to identify a cohort of provider-based RHCs that are motivated to implement a set of clinical and operational best practices to improve performance in one of the focus areas listed below:

  • Controlling Blood Pressure
  • Preventive Care and Screening: Tobacco Use
  • Childhood Immunization Status
  • Diabetes: Hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) Poor Control (>9%)
  • Documentation of Current Medications

These metrics are the most relevant quality improvement metrics for rural health clinics and are built into Lilypad’s Practice Operations National Database (POND) web application and are available for reporting on a quarterly basis. Participating PB-RHCs selected a metric/focus area and translated those activities into a formal Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) initiative to be implemented during the project year. Lilypad’s PDSA initiative tool is a component part of its Learning and Knowledge Exchange (LAKE), a web-based portal containing quality improvement tools, best practice models and a library of compliance, regulatory, strategy and performance improvement resources for RHCs. While not a prerequisite, the proposed project can serve as a basis for RHCs to earn and/or maintain Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH) accreditation.

Linking Finance and Quality in Iowa RHCs | Webinar   

In an era of increased value-based reimbursement, successful small rural clinics and hospitals will integrate quality and financial functions to eliminate operational silos. When properly implemented, the variety of new public and private payer-sponsored chronic care programs have the potential to fund mission-based priorities to increase access to high quality care and fuel service growth. Click the button below to access the webinar recording and use the passcode 7BhGJr!#. View the session slides here. 

LINKING FINANCE AND QUALITY WEBINAR RECORDING  

Get Started Using POND  

Lilypad and the Iowa State Office of Rural Health 

  • Go to POND (Practice Operations National Database) Website
  • Click: Enroll
  • Enter your email address and the NPI number for the Rural Health Clinic (NPI Lookup)
    • Multiple people from the organization may have access and all access is tied to the RHC's NPI number.
  • Enter your most recent fiscal year staffing, financial and operational data. This should take about 20 minutes and is only required once per year.
  • Explore POND for interactive tools and reporting to use in your RHC.
  • Watch the POND Tutorial 101 for assistance. 
  • For help with POND, users may contact Greg Wolf at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..  

Lilypad Resources