The last time Linda Franke visited practices in the three rural Western New York counties she supports as a practice enhancement associate (PEA) before taking time off on maternity leave, she received not only a fond farewell but also a collective sigh of relief.
The practice leaders said, “We really like you, Linda, and we are happy about your baby, especially because it means that you won’t be visiting us for a while and we can get a bit of a break from...
When Universal Primary Care (UPC) needed to transition to a new electronic medical record (EMR) system at the same time they were starting to work on NCQA Patient Center Medical Home (PCMH) certification and “meaningful use” attestation, they contracted with the Upstate New York Practice Based Research Network and P2 Collaborative of Western New York to bring in a Practice Enhancement Associate (PEA).
Read the rest of this AF4Q Bright Spot here.
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In 2006, Medical Care Development (MCD) successfully obtained grant funding over two years to establish the Maine Practice Improvement Network (MPIN). At that time, MCD partnered with five large regional Physician Hospital Organizations, the Maine Medical Association, the Maine Primary Care Association, and multiple physician practices throughout the state, to form the Maine Practice Improvement Network. The goal was to create a structure and a process for the members of the MPIN to share effort, cost, resources, and learning related to office...
In practice, patient-centered health care should fit the unique needs and preferences of individual patients, instead of a “one size fits all” approach. As many communities are striving to achieve this model of care, some like Kansas City, serving a diverse population, are further challenged by racial and ethnic disparities that occur in both processes and outcomes of care. According to the Dartmouth Atlas, leg amputation rates for Medicare enrollees in Kansas City are 4.5 times higher for black patients than non-black patients.
To improve and sustain...
A growing number of quality improvement projects are enabling patients, families, and advocates to advise and affect decision-making within their local health care systems. A report from Aligning Forces for Quality shares the experiences of five communities that are engaging consumers to improve ambulatory care. A recent Lessons Learned piece describes efforts made in the Humboldt County, Oregon, Minnesota, Maine, and South Central Pennsylvania alliances to incorporate consumer engagement into ambulatory quality improvement efforts. While each approach is different, each communities...
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Better Health Greater Cleveland’s efforts to spread the adoption of the patient-centered medical home (PCMH) model of care and electronic health records was the subject of a Plain Dealer editorial. The editorial board opined that cost-saving efforts such as medical homes could not only strongly position Cleveland for federal grants such as the Comprehensive Primary Care Initiative but also lure more businesses into the area.
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Stillwater Medical Group, one of nine medical groups participating in the Minnesota AF4Q Alliance, has made an early commitment to publicly reporting patient experiences in relation to quality of care. The facility adopted the CG-CAHPS tool in order to identity areas of improvement in patient experience and to monitor results. Marked improvements were made in terms of patients’ rating of their own doctors, from 79% to 84% in just one year (Q4 2009 – Q4 2010), proving that by standard measuring – quality can improve. Stillwater's achievements are one of the three...
Engaging patients in decisions about their care increases their involvement and satisfaction. Shared decision making (SDM) is one method to engage patients. In an effort to explore whether SDM could be normalized into usual care, the Institute for Clinical Systems Improvement investigated options for increasing the use of SDM in palliative care and devised methods and tools for overcoming barriers.
Read the entire document here.
Massachusetts Health Quality Partners, convening member of the AF4Q alliance from Greater Boston, Massachusetts, was recently featured in a study by the Rand Corporation about the impact physician practices have made and continue to make in regards to patient experience. The study details MHQP’s efforts in measurement and reporting of patient satisfaction, and its strides toward connecting low- scoring doctors with means in which to raise their score. For example, since 2005, MHQP has conducted surveys with more than 200,000 patients statewide in order to determine levels of...