HJAR Nov/Dec 2023

HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF ARKANSAS I  NOV / DEC 2023 43 Joseph W. Thompson, MD, MPH President and Chief Executive Officer Arkansas Center for Health Improvement ACHI administers the APCD in partnership with the Arkansas Insurance Department and facilitates data access for research proj- ects, program evaluations, market analyses, and system performance assessments. ACHI has also worked to educate policy- makers about the problems of teen smoking and teen vaping. The Legislature approved Act 580 of 2019, which raised the legal age to buy tobacco or vaping products from 18 to 21, several months before Congress wrote the same age limit into federal law. During the COVID-19 pandemic, ACHI worked with the Arkansas Department of Health to provide local-level COVID-19 data on our website. We also worked with several partner organizations, especially theArkan- sas Municipal League, to help interpret the data and provide guidance to local leaders as they navigated the pandemic. The Na- tional Network of Public Health Institutes recognizedACHI last year for “tremendous efforts to support local data, information translation and critical partnership needs in the COVID-19 response in Arkansas.” 2 In 2021, researchers withACHI and UAMS secured a $1.3 million federal grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Drug Abuse for a first-of-its- kind population health analysis of Arkansas’ medical marijuana program. For the study, we are using data linkages made possible by the Arkansas Healthcare Transparency Initiative to examine the health experiences of medical marijuana cardholders; the re- sults should be highly valuable in assessing cannabis’impacts on health and healthcare. Seeking to reduce opioid overdose deaths in the state, we partnered with the Arkan- sas Department of Human Services and the state drug director last year to launch NaloxHome, a program that provides nal- oxone to hospital emergency departments to dispense free of charge to patients at risk trauma system, which at one time every state but Arkansas had. This led toActs 180 and 393 of 2009, which increased the state’s tobacco tax to fund a trauma system and nearly two dozen other health priorities. Lawmakers approved Act 394 of 2009 following efforts by ACHI to alert them to Arkansas’ high rate of traffic deaths among teenagers. The law established graduat- ed driver licensing, requiring teens to go through a gradual transition into indepen- dent driving. The impact was swift: Between 2008 and 2010, fatalities involving teen driv- ers inArkansas dropped by 59%, for an es- timated 32 lives saved. 1 Our efforts in the area of healthcare pay- ment reform include working closely with public and private payers on the creation of the Arkansas Health Care Payment Im- provement Initiative. This patient-centered, value-based approach to transforming the fee-for-service healthcare payment system launched in 2012. In 2013, Arkansas became the first South- ern state to opt for Medicaid expansion under the federal Affordable Care Act. At the time, serving as state surgeon general under Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe as well as holding my then-title of ACHI director, I worked with the governor, his staff, leaders of the Republican-controlled legislature, and ACHI’s staff to develop Arkansas’ in- novative approach to Medicaid expansion, which provides private health coverage to Arkansans earning up to 138% of the federal poverty level. The program is now known asArkansas Health and Opportunity for Me, or ARHOME. Healthcare transparency inArkansas took a leap forward with the passage of the Ar- kansas Healthcare Transparency Initiative of 2015, which requires most insurers to submit health data to a large-scale database, theAr- kansas All-Payer Claims Database (APCD). of overdose. More than 40 hospitals have signed up to participate in the program, which is funded by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration through DHS. Through this program, we learned of barriers to naloxone access and worked with state lawmakers to develop policies expanding access. In May of this year, the National Science Foundation awarded a $1 million grant to ACHI to lead a coalition of organizations in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi in de- veloping a plan for promoting improved and equitable health and economic outcomes in the Mississippi Delta regions of those states. After the plan is developed, we will apply to NSF for additional funding to implement it. This offers potential for a transformational investment in one of the least healthy and most disenfranchised regions of the U.S. We have much more to keep us busy in the years ahead. To name just a few proj- ects, we are drawing attention to the risks experienced by moms and babies during the birthing journey through new analyses, en- gaging in the youthmental health crisis with a focus on the impacts of social media ex- posure, assessing the healthcare workforce supply, exploring policy options to address healthcare workforce challenges, and exam- ining data on the impact of long COVID on Arkansans. We look forward to continuing our role — in collaboration with our many partners — as a catalyst for change. n REFERENCES 1 Arkansas Center for Health Improvement. “Graduated Driver Licenses: Thanks to teen driving law, lives have been saved.” July 2012. https://achi.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/ Graduated-Drivers-Licensing-.pdf 2 National Network of Public Health Institutes. “Congratulations Are In Order: Our 2022 NN- PHI Annual Conference Award Recipients.” May 10, 2022. https://nnphi.org/congratulations- are-in-order-our-2022-nnphi-annual-conference- award-recipients/