Using prepared practice teams and a comprehensive planned care model, providers at HealthPartners Medical Group (HPMG) in Minneapolis, Minnesota, are making impressive gains on a particularly challenging measure of quality for their 10,000 diabetes patients: optimal care.
“This is a comprehensive, ‘all-or-nothing’ measure,” explains Nancy Salazar, RN, HPMG’s Director of Care Innovation and Improvement. “It includes five components of care with seven measures,” including process measures, such as testing patients’ glucose and LDL levels twice a year, and outcomes measures, such as patients having a glucose level of less than 7 and LDL of less than 100.
“We have to meet all the measures to meet the goal, and it requires that patients be very engaged and involved in their care,” says Beth Waterman, RN, MBA, Vice President for Health Improvement and Care Innovation. The system average for optimal care across more than 20 clinics went from 5.8 percent in 2004 to 19.2 percent in 2007, with a goal of 30 percent in primary care over the next several months. Waterman says some physicians are already exceeding 50 percent.
Electronic medical records offer alerts and reminders to trigger necessary care and help each prepared practice team take proactive steps to engage patients before, during, and after their visits to the clinic. “To us it’s a powerful care model process,” says Waterman. “Our patients would just say they have strong relationships with their care team.”
“We care about them, and we’re organized to be proactive, and we help them achieve improved health,” says Nancy Salazar.
06/01/2008
