Jump to:
What is State Refor(u)m?
Who is State Refor(u)m for?
How is the site organized?
What are categories?
What are topics?
What are milestones?
How were categories and milestones derived?
How does my state complete a milestone?
Why should I register for State Refor(u)m?
How do I register, and what are the rules?
What should I do if I forget my password?
What documents should I post on State Refor(u)m?
How do I post a document?
What is State Refor(u)m?
State Refor(u)m is an online network for health reform implementation. It is an initiative of the National Academy for State Health Policy, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
The site connects state health officials looking for information and assistance with their peers and other experts who have relevant resources and experiences to share.
State Refor(u)m is:
• A Discussion Forum: Engage in real-time discussions of implementation issues, including challenges, proposed solutions and lessons learned.
• A Document Library: Find and share reports, legislation, grants and contracts, presentations, and other working materials that address health reform implementation.
• A State Roadmap: The site’s milestones break implementation work into concrete steps. As a user, you can post, organize and share your state’s progress on implementing health care reform.
• A Notification System: Get updates on state implementation issues through the State Refor(u)m blog, category-specific email notifications, and the State Refor(u)m newsletter.
Who is State Refor(u)m for?
State Refor(u)m’s content is designed to serve the state health officials implementing the Affordable Care Act (ACA), but anyone with good information for this community is welcome to participate.
State Refor(u)m has a diverse and active user base of health reform thinkers and doers, including people inside and outside government. Members of the State Refor(u)m community include:
* Medicaid, CHIP, and public health officials
* State insurance department officials
* Governor's health policy advisors
* State legislators
* Legislative staff
* Federal government officials
* Policy analysts
* Researchers
* Students
* Private foundations
* Advocates
* Providers
How is the site organized?
Generally, the site’s content is organized into discussion spaces, document collections, and state progress maps. Based on subject matter, the discussions and documents fit into one of 15 broad categories, or into specific topics within a broad category. The state progress maps depict each state’s completion of health reform implementation milestones.
What are the categories around which all this content is organized?
Health Reform Coordination
Insurance Exchanges
Commercial Insurance
Eligibility and Enrollment
Provider Capacity
Benefit Design
Care Coordination
Data
Population Health
Public Engagement
Quality and Efficiency
Populations
Programs
Providers and Medical Services
Financing and Program Integrity
What are topics?
Topics are exactly what you’d expect: they are subjects more narrowly defined than categories. There is a discussion space for each category, and all documents posted to the site can also be “tagged” with relevant topics.
What are milestones and how are they different from topics?
Milestones are more than just topics. Like topics, they are narrower than categories, and they serve as discussion subjects and as “tags” for relevant subjects. In addition, each milestone is a concrete step in the health reform implementation process. Altogether, the 109 milestones (spread across 11 of the 15 categories) make up a roadmap for states to consult as they make implementation choices. See all the milestones through your state's "state progress" page, or in this pdf document.
How were the categories and milestones derived?
In spring of 2010, NASHP brought together the Executive Committee of the Academy, a group of state health leaders, and sought their perspectives on the keys to successful health care reform implementation. Those discussions produced a core list of ten priorities for health care reform implementation, subsequently supplemented with an 11th component: a call for an overall coordinated approach to implementing the ACA. These components are 11 of the 15 the categories on State Refor(u)m.
Later that year, NASHP’s senior policy staff saw value for states in breaking the 11 health-reform categories into 11 checklists of concrete steps toward implementation. Staff researched, composed, reviewed and revised 109 different milestones in three rounds of editing in the fall and winter of 2010. More than a dozen national experts; NASHP’s Executive Committee; and nine other state officials all reviewed and reacted to the milestones.
How does the State Refor(u)m team know when my state has complete a milestone?
State Refor(u)m relies on users to report and submit documentation of a state's progress on milestones. The site will show a milestone as completed under the following circumstances (listed in order of preference):
1. A state official uploads a document that shows completion of the milestone and checks the “is this milestone documentation?” box when doing so.
2. A registered user uploads an official state document that shows completion of the milestone and checks the “is this milestone documentation?” box when doing so.
3. An email is received at statereforum@nashp.org including documentation or news reports that show that milestone work has been completed.
4. The State Refor(u)m team independently finds a document that shows milestone completion.
In any of these cases, before recording the passage of the milestone, the State Refor(u)m team will confirm the validity of the documentation. Validity checks may include confirming that a document is genuine or checking with an appropriate state official with authority over the topic.
In instances where completion of a milestone is in question, the State Refor(u)m team will defer to the judgment of the relevant state official with responsibility for the work.
Why should I register for State Refor(u)m?
Registering has benefits for you as a user. It allows you to subscribe to the State Refor(u)m newsletter, post documents and comments about your state’s approach to health care reform, ask questions and offer ideas in discussion spaces on the site, and sign up for new-content alerts. By comparison, non-registered visitors to the site can only read content and download documents.
How do I register to be a State Refor(u)m user?
Fill out the form here.
What are State Refor(u)m’s rules about registering?
You must use your real name when you register. This is a best practice for online communities; it helps keep the discussions smart and civil.
You may create only one profile with any given email address. If you try to create another, the site will not allow it.
What should I do if I forget my password?
If you forget your password, use the password recovery link that appears on the log-in screen when you enter a mistaken password. The site will generate a new password and send it to the email address associated with your user profile. If you are still unable to log in, contact the site administrator at statereforum@nashp.org.
What documents should I post on State Refor(u)m?
You should post anything you think might help those within your state or your counterparts in other states as they work to implement the ACA.
These documents might be reports, policy analyses, state plan amendments, memos, meeting notes, hearing transcripts, legislation, regulations, official announcements, presentations, executive orders, policy manuals, or other publications. Some documents will indicate passage of a milestone, but every document is valuable to your peers working on health care reform.
How do I post a document?
Only registered State Refor(u)m community members may post documents, but signup is quick and easy. Document-posting happens within a discussion—whether it’s a milestone topic or any other topic.
Follow these five steps:
1) Click “discussions” from the top of the page, and navigate to the topical discussion that’s relevant to your document. (If the document is relevant to more than one milestone, just select one discussion; you can add the other topics as “tags” in another step.)
2) Look for the comment box beneath the discussion in progress, or beneath the milestone description if the discussion has not yet begun. (Make sure you’re logged in, or you won’t see the comment box!)
3) In the comment box, introduce your document. Tell other community members how you think the document might help them
4) Click the upload document box and choose your file. In the window that appears, enter a short, informative title for your document, using no more than the number of characters specified. Decide whether your document serves as documentation of a milestone and if so, check the box. . You also will see topical “tag” options in a drop-down menu within the upload box. These tags are optional, but tags will make it easier for you and other users to find information as the site grows, so we strongly encourage you to use them. You can select up to 5 total topical tags. Last, select the document type (like legislation, report, announcement, etc.).
5) Click “attach” within the document box, then “post” on the comment you started on the discussion page. That’s it!