| Improving Performance in Practice |
| IPIP & Healthcare Reform in Pennsylvania |
What Is IPIP?
IPIP is a practice-based quality improvement program featuring practice coaching, collaborative learning, patient registry support and monthly performance measurement and benchmarking.
Nationally, IPIP is a program of the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) Research and Education Foundation and funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Pennsylvania is just one of a few states to have received ABMS support to create a state-based IPIP program. The Pennsylvania IPIP program started in Sept. 2007 and is led by the Pennsylvania Academy of Family Physicians and the Pennsylvania Chapters of the American College of Physicians and the American Academy of Pediatrics. Together these three organizations form the Pennsylvania Primary Care Coalition and represent more than 10,000 family physicians, general internists and general pediatricians.
PA IPIP Part of Governor's Chronic Care Initiative
In Pennsylvania, IPIP is working in conjunction with the Pennsylvania Chronic Care Initiative, a program of the Governor’s Office of Health Care Reform. The initiative aims to implement the Chronic Care Model in primary care practices (focused initially on adult type 2 diabetes and pediatric asthma) and to help practices become NCQA-recognized patient-centered medical homes.
Primary Care Practices Celebrate Improvement in Patient Care
Governor Praises Teams For Accomplishments
The primary care practices in the first learning collaborative of the Pennsylvania Chronic Care Initiative celebrated a 1-year anniversary in May with an “Outcomes Congress,” where they learned that they had significantly improved certain clinical measures for diabetes and asthma care.
For example:
The number of patients with self-management goals increased 195%.
The number of patients getting eye exams increased 71%.
The number of patients getting foot exams increased 142%.
The number of patients with cholesterol below 130 increased 43%.
The number of patients with blood pressure below 140/90 increased 25%.
The number of children with asthma with action plans increased 100%.
These outstanding results impressed Governor Ed Rendell, health plan medical directors and other policy makers. Governor Rendell praised the practices during the celebration for having bought into the initiative “heart and soul.”
“I’m so impressed with what you have done, and I’ll get this to the President,” said Rendell.
The Governor’s Office of Health Care Reform is leading the PA Chronic Care Initiative, which is rolling out regionally across Pennsylvania this year, with the support of the PA Improving Performance in Practice (IPIP) program, led in Pennsylvania by the PAFP and the PA Chapters of the American College of Physicians and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
The SE PA Outcomes Congress included a full day of sessions for the 32 practices - all based in southeast PA - during which they shared successes with each other.
Highlighted practice changes included new approaches to patient education and self-management support, implementation of patient registries, EMR systems and templates, expanding the role of medical assistants and other office and clinical staff, and the introduction of practice-based case management.
The outstanding success of the past year is great motivation for these practices as they enter year two of their three-year commitment and for practices in other regional learning collaboratives that are new or will start sometime this year.
Each practice also produced story boards, some of which will be on display at the PAFP’s Annual Meeting in Hershey May 28-30. Check out the story boards to learn how practices used the Chronic Care Model and what changes were most successful.
PA IPIP State Director Patricia (Pat) Bricker also can anwer questions and provide more details - 717-635-7575 (direct), 1-800-648-5623 or pbricker@pafp.com. |
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