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The Referral Coordination Initiative (RCI) had an incredible year with the launch of several new resources to support the field and a focused effort by Referral Coordination Teams (RCTs) to share all health care options with Veterans. This year’s accomplishments included organizing RCI collaborative workshops, collecting promising practices, releasing the updated RCI Guidebook, revamping the RCI SharePoint, implementing the Q&A Dashboard, and releasing two TMS courses along with many other useful guidance documents.
With the end of FY22, we look forward to a successful FY23. We held an initial strategic planning meeting in early October and plan to continue these meetings to discuss the strategy for RCI in FY23. As RCI continues to integrate into the new Office of Integrated Veteran Care (IVC), you may notice some changes in support. We held our last RCI Office Hours on October 12th and future RCI presentations will be incorporated into the weekly IVC Access Community of Practice (CoP) calls on Wednesdays at 2pm ET. Additionally, this will be the last iteration of the RCInsights Newsletter; future articles on RCI can be found in the IVC Alliance Newsletter – subscribe here! The RCI SharePoint page, Q&A Dashboard, and other resources will be continuously updated and accessible to you all – our support may be changing, but it remains available.
Please continue to share your feedback and suggestions with our team via the Pulse of the Field Survey and/or the Q&A Dashboard so we can best support your efforts to provide our Veterans with the best possible RCI experience. I want to reiterate that our support is not going anywhere. I look forward to seeing RCI continue to facilitate timely, high-quality, and integrated health care for our Veterans in FY23.
Lisa Arfons, M.D.
Acting Executive Leadership Team Integrated Veteran Care
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The RCI HOC Specialty Care Dashboard will sunset on October 31, 2022. Sunsetting will decrease the number of reports and make it easier for staff to identify which reports to use. Much of the information captured in the dashboard is available in the RCI VSSC Dashboard and other reports.
Alternative locations to view the information that is in the RCI HOC Specialty Care Dashboard is available below.
Please submit any questions regarding this change to the RCI Q&A Dashboard.
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As of November 1, the VHA Referral Coordination Initiative VHARCI@va.gov subject matter expert (SME) email group will no longer be used. Earlier this year, the RCI Q&A Dashboard was developed to allow users to search RCI Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and submit RCI questions in a centralized location. Moving forward, all RCI questions and feedback will need to be submitted using the RCI Q&A Dashboard.
A full presentation on how to use the RCI Q&A Dashboard can be found in the 4/13 RCI Office Hours presentation on the RCI SharePoint. Below is a quick overview of the process steps:
- Go to the RCI SharePoint
- Select the RCI Q&A Dashboard from the navigation panel on the lefthand-side of the homepage (bookmark for quicker access)
- Determine if your question is RCI (Non-CTB) or CTB related
- RCI (Non-CTB Related)
- Click ‘Submit a RCI Question’
- Populate the form and select save
- Your question will be routed to the appropriate SME to be addressed
- Consult Tool Box
- Click ‘CTB Customer Service Dashboard Search and Submit Question Page’- CTB Customer Service Dashboard - Power Apps
- Click ‘Submit a New Question’
- Populate the form and select save (remember to mark ‘Yes’ if the question is RCI related)
- Your question will be routed to the appropriate SME to be addressed
If you have any questions about using the RCI Q&A Dashboard, please let us know.
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The national RCI team assessed FY22 progress to identify improvement areas and successes from this past year’s efforts. The team asked VAMCs to submit success stories on the Q&A Dashboard and held five VAMC focus groups to discuss their submissions and stories. This provided a narrative and meaningful context for learning about accomplishments. Below are highlights from the field.
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Utility and accessibility of the updated RCI SharePoint – “Recent updates to the SharePoint have made navigation much easier. We love that there is more information on the expectations for each facility which lets us guide and own how we use RCI in the facility.”
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Meaningful topics during RCI Office Hours – “Office hours are very helpful, and we appreciate the topics which are being presented.”
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Usefulness of updated RCI Guidebook– “Guidebook updates are user friendly and helpful in trying to find what to look for.”
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Improved efficiency with a centralized model – “The organizational structure has enabled us to be more successful in the management of the consult process.”
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Applicability of TMS courses for new staff – “New TMS courses are helpful for the new clinical and administrative staff that we need to onboard.”
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Importance of support from local leadership – “Strong leadership support for RCI has been instrumental in the success of the VAMC. It is critical that you have leadership and staff that are excited about the RCI program.”
Notably, each focus group emphasized that the biggest attributor to their success was their people. Your everyday efforts and support of RCI have been the driver which successfully empowers Veterans to make health care choices that are right for them. If you’d like to share a RCI success story from your VAMC, please submit it on the Q&A Dashboard under the ‘RCI Feedback/Success Story’ category.
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The National RCI Education and Training Team has developed role-specific learning paths to provide Referral Coordination Team (RCT) staff members with easy access to relevant RCI TMS courses and other resources. Learning paths have been created for RCI leadership and staff, referring providers, specialty providers, clinical RCTs, administrative RCTs, and all VHA staff. The learning paths can be found on the RCI SharePoint Training Resources page.
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