Three Additional Groups Honored for Progress in Achieving IOM Aims
Newswise — The American Medical Group Association (AMGA) today announced that the recipient of the 2010 AMGA Acclaim Award is Group Health Physicians for “Reforming Our Delivery System: Internal Transformation to External Expansion,” which embraces a system-wide implementation of the medical home model to improve care coordination and care management for their patient population. The award, granted through AMGA’s philanthropic arm, the American Medical Group Foundation (AMGF), will be presented at AMGA’s Institute for Quality Leadership Annual Conference, September 29 – October 1, 2010 in Hollywood, Florida.
In the award-winning initiative, Group Health Physicians demonstrated how years of innovative thinking, strong leadership, and a clear strategic vision created an organizational transformation and new ways to deliver value in patient care. Group Health leveraged a redesigned electronic health record to improve care processes, and strengthened multiple levels of access for patients. They enhanced coordination during patients’ care setting transitions and improved hospitalization rates. And with successful implementation of the Patient Centered Medical Home model in 26 primary care clinics, Group Health significantly improved patient and staff satisfaction while achieving a 30 percent increase in virtual care visits and $10 per member per month in cost savings.
Three additional groups were announced as Acclaim Award Honorees:
• Dreyer Medical Clinic’s “Clinical Integration Transforms Health Outcomes” initiated an organizational culture change by implementing a change management model in partnership with Advocate Health Care to improve process and outcome measures. Through a joint venture between system hospitals, physician hospital organizations, and medical groups, Dreyer Medical Clinic was able to integrate patient care and care transitions by focusing on population management, resulting in improved metrics across several domains of patient care and efficiency.
• HealthPartners’ “Integrating the Equitable Care Aim” reflects a system’s approach to improve cultural competency and decrease racial, ethnic, and financial disparities through targeted and effective strategies implemented to address specific barriers. Through strong leadership commitment, the group was able to design programs that effectively reached out to the community to obtain clear and significant data, provide cross-cultural education and training as well as organizational language resources for providers, and increase patient satisfaction.
• Sharp Rees-Stealy Medical Group’s “A Journey to Healthcare Excellence” resulted in dramatic and sustained improvement in patient and staff satisfaction. Physician champions and clinical thought leaders embraced organizational change and improvement by implementing practical and effective strategies to create an exceptional patient experience and transformational improvements in clinical care, patient satisfaction, employee satisfaction, physician satisfaction, and cost of care.
“These organizations demonstrated a monumental leap forward in providing patients the health care they need and want,” said Donald W. Fisher, Ph.D., AMGA’s president and chief executive officer and AMGF secretary/treasurer. “We salute the dedication of the organizations’ leadership and healthcare providers in improving patient outcomes, patient safety, and efficiency of care; improving preventive and chronic care; and establishing uniform clinical and service measures to document excellence.”
AMGA’s prestigious Acclaim Award honors organizations that embrace the IOM’s aims by incorporating the six attributes of an ideal healthcare delivery system as identified by the Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System. These organizations demonstrated that:
• Clinically relevant patient information can be available to all providers at the point of care and to patients, preferably through electronic health record systems.• Patient care is coordinated among multiple providers, and transitions across care settings are actively managed.• All members of the care team both within and across settings have accountability to each other, review each other’s work, and collaborate to reliably deliver high-quality, high-value care. • Patients have easy access to appropriate care, including after hours; there are multiple points of entry to the system; and providers are culturally competent and responsive to patients’ needs.• There is clear accountability for the total care of patients.• The system is continuously innovating and learning.
The award highlights the continued research and investigation toward finding the finest models of medical management, coordination of care delivery, and a systemic approach to improving the patient experience. The recipient of the award receives a Steuben Crystal, produced specifically for the award as well as national recognition. Honorees also are recognized and receive crystal awards.
Applicant criteria, structured around the six IOM Aims for the 21st Century, place a heavy emphasis on leadership involvement. Applicants are asked to measurably demonstrate progress toward achieving the six aims and transforming their organizations to provide health care that is consistent with the aims. AMGA looks for medical groups that have made and documented system-wide changes to improve medical care for large numbers of the patients they serve, and through the process, consistently improve organizational performance. Applicants are evaluated in a blinded review process conducted by nationally recognized leaders in healthcare quality.
“The groups honored with this award exemplify the best quality health care in the United States, and the efforts of multispecialty medical groups and other organized systems of care to provide the right care at the right time in the most efficient manner,” said Fisher. “Coordinated care has been the hallmark of AMGA member groups, and programs like the Acclaim Award help these groups continue their innovative work and communicate their successes to the healthcare community to better serve their patients. It is our hope that medical groups throughout the country will learn about the work of these innovators and be inspired to implement similar programs in their medical groups.”
The American Medical Group Foundation is the philanthropic arm of the AMGA. As a nonprofit 501(C)(3) organization, its mission is to foster quality improvement in group practice through education and research programs in clinical quality, patient safety, service, operational efficiency, and innovation. In addition to research and demonstration projects, the Foundation helps support learning collaboratives and presents educational grants and awards to medical groups that demonstrate improvements in practice, quality, and patient care.
The American Medical Group Association represents medical groups, including some of the nation's largest, most prestigious medical practices, independent practice associations, and integrated healthcare delivery systems. AMGA's mission is to improve health care for patients by supporting multispecialty medical groups and other organized systems of care. The members of AMGA deliver health care to approximately 109 million patients in 49 states, nearly 1 in 3 Americans. Headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, AMGA is the strategic partner for medical groups, providing a comprehensive package of benefits, including political advocacy, educational and networking programs and publications, benchmarking data services, and financial and operations assistance. www.amga.org
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