Know Your Community: Beacon Community Projects

Is there a Beacon Community project near you?  If you don’t know, you might want to Google "Beacon Community Project" and find out.  


There are 17 projects across the country and all involve large health systems. These are government demonstration projects that are establishing the way all health care resources in a community will work together. Beacon Community projects are determining the clinical research to be used in future meaningful use and health care reform legislation. If this is happening in your community, it is certainly in your interest to know about it and also to be part of it. 


If programs being driven by a large health system seem irrelevant to your eye care practice, be sure to ask yourself, "Do I want a model program being established in my community, one that's going to drive the future delivery of health care, including eye care, and not be part of it?"


Jim Grue, O.D.