| Improving Performance in Practice |
| PA IPIP Supports Primary Care Practices To Implement Continuous Quality Improvement |
A primary characteristic of a Patient-Centered Medical Home is quality, particularly continuous quality improvement. IPIP stands for Improving Performance In Practice, and in Pennsylvania, the IPIP program helps hundreds of primary care practices implement changes that profoundly improve their practice environments and patient outcomes.
What Is IPIP?
IPIP is a practice-based quality improvement program featuring practice support, a patient registry for population management 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 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 & the 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 using the Model for Improvement, which helps to accelerate change, and the Breakthrough Series, which is a 12-month format for learning. The CCI also helps practices to become NCQA-recognized patient-centered medical homes.
Work has focused largely on secondary prevention by improving the health status of patients with diabetes, asthma and cardiovascular disease. Recently, through a grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Health, work has expanded to primary prevention through the colorectal cancer screening project. Some of the CRC screening resources are available to all primary care practices so visit that project page to watch webcasts and download tools.
The number of practices and physicians involved means the Chronic Care Initiative reaches about 10% of Pennsylvania’s population. Initial outcomes are outstanding.
PA IPIP staff presented diabetes results at the June 2010 PA Diabetes Action Partnership. Check out the slides to see the progress practices have made in lowering A1C levels and other measures, including difficult to change measures such as blood pressure.
PA IPIP & Family Medicine & Internal Medicine Residency Programs
New in 2010, PA IPIP is supporting a collaborative of about 25 family medicine and general internal medicine residency programs. The collaborative is based on the Chronic Care Initiative and is implementing the Chronic Care Model using the Model for Improvement and the Breakthrough Series. Programs are working on improving diabetes outcomes through June 2011. The residency programs also are working to be recognized as NCQA patient-centered medical homes.
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