Local QI Collaborative Provides Framework for Culture Shift

Independent Practice Association (IPA), a major partner in the Humboldt County AF4Q alliance, has long acknowledged the essential role of patient engagement in developing and redesigning systems of care. Yet, putting this value into action has been an incremental process.

As the organizational body that represents 98 percent of all medical providers in the county, the IPA has a history of supporting its members in quality improvement initiatives. In 2009, the IPA adopted an ambulatory quality improvement collaborative model pioneered at Care Oregon, called Primary Care Renewal (PCR). Open to ambulatory care practices in the community, the PCR collaborative has provided a forum for medical practices to become familiar with quality improvement methodologies, gain exposure to best practices, an d learn about elements of system redesign. Now in its third iteration, the PCR is managed by a leadership team = of IPA administrative leaders, community consumer leaders, and a PCR project manager. Practices signed contracts and received stipends based upon completion of core expectations.

In PCR 1.0, practices were introduced to quality improvement methodologies, core curriculum topic areas, and the patient experience of care (via a meeting featuring consumers living with chronic health conditions). As expected, PCR 2.0 grew in terms of collaborative expectations, practice team support, and patient engagement. To put the patient truly in the center, the steering committee embedded “patient partners” into the design of PCR 2.0, working off a carefully designed model of patient engagement in quality improvement developed by Betsy Stapleton and Jessica Osborne-Stafsnes from Aligning Forces Humboldt.

Read more about this great AF4Q Bright Spot here.

View the entire Illustrating Innovation Through Bright Spots book, produced for the May 2012 National Meeting here.