Beacon Community of the Inland Northwest

Saturday, September 10th, 2011 at 09:05

Beacon Community of the Inland Northwest is using technology to improve health care for type 2 diabetes patients throughout the Inland Northwest.

Their focus is on:

Improved patient outcomes
Access for patients to specialty providers, care coordination and diabetes services
Real-time information for providers to provide the best care
Reduced unnecessary costs

Led by INHS, BCIN is one of 17 communities across the country selected by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to serve as pilot communities for eventual wide-scale use of health information technology.

The Beacon Community of the Inland Northwest is funded by a Cooperative Agreement from the Office of the National Coordinator, Award No: 90BC0011/01, CFDA:93.727

BCIN Goals

The BCIN is working to accomplish the following goals:

Increasing meaningful use of health information technology for all medical conditions
Promoting cost efficiency by reducing use and costs of emergent and inpatient care for diabetes-related complications
Improving quality of care by increasing compliance with diabetes preventive health services
Improving core preventive measures for individuals with diabetes
Promoting care coordination across the state and across the country by connecting the BCIN to the Washington and Idaho state health information exchanges and to the nationwide health information exchange

Geographic Area

Funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the BCIN will increase care coordination and disease management for patients with diabetes in rural and urban communities across 14 counties in eastern Washington and northern Idaho. The BCIN geographic region is predominately rural with a large proportion of traditionally medically under served populations. The geographic region covered is the Spokane, Washington Hospital Referral Region as defined in the Dartmouth Atlas, which includes north central Washington, eastern Washington, and north Idaho.