Comagine Health and the Partnership to Advance Tribal Health (PATH) strive to improve population health among American Indian and Alaska Native communities. With the support of federal, state and local partnerships, PATH works with Indian Health Service (IHS) health care facilities and area offices to develop a unified, “we” approach to advance tribal health in the seven states PATH serves.
A PATH Toward Improved Health and Health Care
PATH helps IHS hospitals achieve quality improvement goals, especially in these areas:
Increasing Patient Safety
PATH offers training and support to help hospitals implement evidence-based programs and best practices and to educate patients and their families, so patients are safe and not at risk for preventable complications while seeking quality health care.
Improving Quality of Care Transitions
PATH helps build networks, within communities and across the nation, to provide a forum for sharing best practices on overcoming barriers and using standardized processes. This peer-to-peer sharing will lead to successful patient outcomes as patients move from one setting to another. Another key component to this success will be making sure a patient has what he or she needs and understands what he or she needs to know when being discharged from the hospital or transferred.
Improving Behavioral Health Outcomes
PATH works to improve access to care and care coordination while addressing patients’ physical, mental, social and spiritual wellness. Working with behavioral health professionals, PATH provides tools to help with screening, interventions and treatment to make sure patients get the care and support they need, especially around suicide prevention, pain management and substance use disorder.
Responding to Public Health Emergencies
COVID-19 and the country’s opioid crisis highlight the needs for emergency preparedness and response, especially among American Indian and Alaska Native communities, which are hit especially hard by these kinds of crises. PATH partners with IHS facilities and area offices to help make sure they are ready and prepared for emergencies.
Patient, Family and Tribal Engagement
Focusing on American Indian and Alaska Native culture, tradition and individuals’ personal wishes is an integral part of advancing tribal health. Input from patients, families and tribal communities will be included in quality improvement planning.
Local PATH Support
Serving Arizona and New Mexico
Comagine Health | Contact Comagine Health
Serving Minnesota
Stratis Health | Contact Stratis Health
Serving Montana
Mountain-Pacific Quality Health | Contact Mountain-Pacific
Serving North Dakota and South Dakota
Great Plains QIN | Contact Great Plains
Serving Oklahoma
Oklahoma Foundation for Medical Quality (OFMQ) | Contact OFMQ
Key Contacts
Francesca McCall
Contract Operations Coordinator
(505) 998-9745 | fmccall@comagine.org
Leslie Johnstone
Task Order Director
(702) 510-9754 | ljohnstone@comagine.org
Marilyn Reierson, MS
Program Director
(952) 853-1815 | mreierson@stratishealth.org
Sharon Phelps, RN, BSN
Associate Program Director
(307) 439-2373 | sphelps@mpqhf.org
Sarah Leake, MBA
Manager, Patient Safety/SQI Operations
(406) 461-4504 | sleake@mpqhf.org
Jane Brock, MD, MSPH
Clinical Practitioner
(303) 518-1959 | jbrock@telligen.com
