Featured Ambulatory Care Stories
The Importance of Preparing for Change
By embedding the patient’s voice and perspective across the continuum of quality improvement, the Oregon Health Care Quality Corporation, the AF4Q initiative leader in Oregon, is transforming the future of ambulatory care. Quality Corp’s Patients and Families as Leaders initiative is cha...
Engaging Patients in Improving Ambulatory Care
Patients are the heart of any primary care practice. Patients and practices share a mission to improve patient health—a mission in which both parties play indispensable roles. Three AF4Q Alliances (Humboldt County, Maine, and Oregon) have developed a compendium of resources that details the im...
The Right Care
Not only do Americans not always get the right care, sometimes we get too much of it. Not all medical procedures are created equal, and sometimes they can hurt us. ShopSmart, a national magazine from the creators of Consumer Reports, encourage readers to use data, including AF4Q public reports, when...
SCPA Improves Care for Diabetics
The work of Aligning Forces for Quality was recently featured in Evolution, the business and technology magazine from SKF, for its work to improve diabetes treatment. By applying efficiency techniques from the business sector to primary care practices, the quality of medical care for patients was ra...
The DOCTOR Project Is...In
How well do the doctors in your community perform when it comes to managing patients' chronic conditions and offering preventive screenings? The DOCTOR Project seeks to find out and let you know. Launched earlier this year by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the DOCTOR Project is a new initi...
Looking for a new doctor?
Looking for a new doctor? If you live in Massachusetts, it’s easier than ever with HealthcareCompassMA.org. The new consumer-friendly website makes it simple for patients and their families to compare and select a primary care doctor’s office based on quality and patient experience surve...
Reforming Payment in an Evolving Environment: A Brief on Bundled Payment Successes and Challenges
Bundled payment models hold the promise of driving down health care costs while improving health care quality. As pilot projects have been conducted in the field, common barriers and themes have emerged, including administrative implementation hurdles, data and technology challenges, new emphasis...
PEAs Help Primary Care Grow
As Ann Abdella would bicycle to work, she would pass by small farms and think about the similarities between small farmers and independent primary care practices. Both are the backbone of the community and have a great sense of pride, but they are disappearing at a rapid rate. Primary care is the fo...
The Definition of Doctor Insanity
Phil Baty is a family doc. His patient, Rick, is a 62-year-old Bible-carrying truck driver with multiple health problems. Baty has been his doctor for 22 years. In the past, his visits have been spent dealing with the latest health problem, rather than managing all his chronic conditions. Now, with ...
Making a Difference in Health Actually Takes a Community
Ann Kunkel told the story of Betty, an older woman living in a senior community, who, in her day, “was a force to be reckoned with.” She was a social activist for women’s rights and racial equality, but in her later years, she became isolated and developed diabetes and osteoarthrit...