What's New with Cincinnati AF4Q

Your resource for updates and important news regarding
AF4Q efforts in Greater Cincinnati

A lot has happened over the summer at The Health Improvement Collaborative and we would like to take this opportunity to give you an update of all the great work happening in the Cincinnati Aligning Forces for Quality Program.

IN THIS ISSUE:

  • Upcoming Event! Primary Care Innovators Forum
    The Health Improvement Collaborative is hosting a special recognition lunch on Friday, October 29 to celebrate the community-wide achievement of having nearly 350 local physicians publicly reporting read more...
  • On the Funding Front
    The Greater Cincinnati Beacon Collaboration, led by HealthBridge, has been awarded a Beacon Community Grant from the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of the National Coordinator read more...
  • Your Health Matters Launched
    The Health Improvement Collaborative recently launched an exciting, easy-to-use website that allows the tens of thousands of people with Type 2 diabetes in the Greater Cincinnati region to read more...
  • Patient-Centered Medical Homes Achieve
    National Recognition
    The Health Improvement Collaborative is pleased to announce that 11 Greater Cincinnati physician practices have been recognized by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) read more...
  • Hospitals Collaborating for Quality and Equity
    As part of a national effort to improve the quality and equity of care provided to all patients, 24 hospitals throughout Greater Cincinnati have joined together in Cincinnati Expecting Success (CES), an initiative read more...

October 2010

Upcoming Event! Primary Care Innovators Forum

The Health Improvement Collaborative is hosting a special recognition lunch on Friday, October 29 to celebrate the community-wide achievement of having nearly 350 local physicians publicly reporting clinical diabetes measures — distinguishing themselves as true leaders in the effort to provide high-quality care to patients in our region. We would like to thank the provider community and the health systems in Greater Cincinnati for their continued support of the public reporting initiative. Dr. Bruce Bagley, Medical Director for Quality Improvement for the American Academy of Family Physicians will deliver the keynote address. After a celebratory lunch, the Collaborative has put together an excellent afternoon program where we can share resources to help practices take the next steps toward patient care transformation. View invitation.

There will be three workshop sessions offered ranging from a basic introduction to the steps by which practices can develop and conduct a quality improvement project on their own to more in-depth quality improvement that could include becoming part of the next Cohort of 20 practices to go through the "Patient Centered Medical Home" transformation process, beginning in January of 2011. Participating practices will receive assistance, over a two year period, with achieving NCQA recognition, accomplishing a number of "transformation" processes, and completing a specific QI project in the area of Diabetes care.

If you are interested in attending the celebration, please click here to register online.

On the Funding Front

The Greater Cincinnati Beacon Collaboration, led by HealthBridge, has been awarded a Beacon Community Grant from the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of the National Coordinator. The Beacon Community Program is using health information technology to help tackle leading health problems in communities across the country, and Cincinnati is one

of 17 such communities. HealthBridge, which will receive $13.8 million over the next three years, will work with the Health Improvement Collaborative, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and others to fully develop a robust community information exchange, including a community wide registry and master patient index, facilitating new quality improvement and coordination initiatives for patients with pediatric asthma and adult diabetes. The infusion of

this funding source into our community will certainly accelerate the great work already underway to improve the quality of diabetes care through the Cincinnati AF4Q program.

Your Health Matters LAUNCHED

The Health Improvement Collaborative recently launched an exciting, easy–to–use website that allows the tens of thousands of people with Type 2 diabetes in the Greater Cincinnati region to compare the care that local physicians provide. The website, YourHealthMattersGreater Cincinnati.org, allows visitors to assess the quality of diabetes care delivered in local physician practices, and provides tools and information to help patients understand the steps they can take to better manage their own care. The website currently reports on the performance of physician practices based on five goals that have been professionally recommended

as critical for adults with diabetes:

  • Controlling blood pressure
  • Lowering bad cholesterol
  • Maintaining balanced blood sugar
  • Remaining tobacco free
  • Taking daily aspirin
Users of YourHealthMatters GreaterCincinnati.org learn about these goals and can search physician practices to see which offices in the region were best able to work with their patients to meet these

goals. More than 95 primary care physician practices, representing 340 physicians throughout the Tristate voluntarily participated in this report.

Do you listen to NPR on your drive to and from work? If so, you will likely hear our spot about YourHealthMatters! Our radio promotion began on October 11 and will run through Thanksgiving.

Patient-Centered Medical Homes
Achieve National Recognition

The Health Improvement Collaborative is pleased to announce that 11 Greater Cincinnati physician practices have been recognized by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) as Patient-Centered Medical Homes. See sidebar for complete list. These practices are among the first in Ohio and Kentucky to receive this designation. The practices achieved the NCQA as part of a patient-centered medical home pilot program developed as part of the Cincinnati Aligning Forces for Quality initiative. Over the past two years, physicians and staff members have received support and training to transform their practices. The pilot is one of only a handful in the nation that has the financial backing of multiple health insurance plans. There was so much interest in participating in the program that several primary care groups have been participating in the training as "co-pilots." The co-pilots will be submitting for NCQA recognition in November.

The patient-centered medical home is a model of care that holds significant promise for better health care quality, improved involvement of patients in their own care and reduced avoidable costs over time. The model puts responsibility for coordinating care in the hands of a primary care physician who has an ongoing relationship with each patient. The Beacon grant will allow us to begin a new cohort of PCMH practices in January.

Hospitals Collaborating for Quality and Equity

As part of a national effort to improve the quality and equity of care provided to all patients, 24 hospitals throughout Greater Cincinnati have joined together in Cincinnati Expecting Success (CES), an initiative that will help them better serve all patients regardless of race, ethnicity or language preference. During the registration process, patients in these hospitals will be asked to self-report their ethnicity, race and preferred language for receiving health information. To collect the information, hospitals have agreed to use standardized categories developed by the Institute of Medicine and used by the U.S. Census Bureau. Many local hospitals previously asked patients for this information, but did not do so in a way that would allow for examination of community-wide trends.

"Hospitals need better tools to determine if racial and ethnic disparities in care exist and to identify and test specific interventions to address these challenges," said Nancy Strassel, Senior Vice President of the Greater Cincinnati Health Council, which is spearheading the effort. "We are asking these questions because we want to improve care for every patient that comes into our facilities."

"CES will help hospitals to use data effectively to target potential disparities and to improve language access," said Lisa Sloane, project consultant leading the day-to-day work of Cincinnati Expecting Success. "The effort is intended to ultimately raise the quality of care for all patients," Sloane said.

The CES effort is part of Cincinnati Aligning Forces for Quality (AF4Q), a comprehensive program of the Health Improvement Collaborative of Greater Cincinnati in partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. AF4Q offers area hospitals opportunities to learn from national experts and build on the success of work across the country

that is addressing disparities in care and overall quality of care. Locally, hospital will be using collaborative learning networks and data-sharing to help identify opportunities for improvement across the region.