Director's Message
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In this
month's newsletter, you'll find information on a range of Quality Counts
activities, including continued work under the Aligning Forces for Quality
initiative (AF4Q) and the Maine Patient Centered Medical Home Pilot, planning
for our upcoming "QC7" conference on April 16, and new efforts such as the
Maine Pressure Ulcer Prevention Collaborative and the Behavioral Health Metrics
System.
Our
mission and vision, noted below, offer the potential for a wide scope of work:
Mission: Quality Counts is transforming health and healthcare in Maine by leading,
collaborating, and aligning improvement efforts.
Vision: Through the active engagement and alignment of people, communities and
healthcare partners, every person in Maine
will enjoy the best of health and have access to patient centered care that is
uniformly high quality, equitable, and efficient.
A clear
challenge for Quality Counts, therefore, is to work broadly enough to make
progress towards our aspirational goal of "transforming health and healthcare",
while maintaining sufficient focus to demonstrate meaningful improvements in
care.
In a
recent strategic planning retreat, the Quality Counts Board reaffirmed a set of
core strategies that aim to balance this broad organizational mission with our
need to maintain focus. These strategies include:
- Continuing to align improvement efforts in the state, including convening
stakeholders around
key issues and building connections between related efforts
- Fostering meaningful consumer engagement in transforming healthcare
- Promoting a system for sustainable quality improvement assistance to providers
across the
state
- Promoting the integration of behavioral and physical healthcare
Clearly,
we will only be able to meet our mission by working collaboratively with our
Members and
many stakeholders. We hope you will find the information on
our current activities useful, and encourage you to get engaged!
Best regards,
Lisa M. Letourneau MD, MPH
Executive Director
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Quality Counts 7 - Annual Best Practice College
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Quality
Counts 7 (QC7) is the latest in our series of annual conferences
which promote transformational changes needed to create dramatic and
sustainable improvements in health and healthcare in Maine.
The conference will focus on improving health in
communities, and will feature community-specific reports of health and healthcare,
including the soon-to-be-released
County Health Rankings reports, and Public Health
District health reports being developed as part of the State Health
Plan process.
It will also provide opportunities for stakeholders within and across
communities to identify ways to work together on recognized common
goals and, by working together, overcome barriers to create
transformative and sustainable change in Maine.
QC7 offers
useful information to many stakeholders
- healthcare providers, including physicians and other
clinicians; hospital and nursing leaders; employers; payers;
consumers; health policy makers; public health workers, including
Healthy Maine Partnership staff; health educators; healthcare
administrators; and physician office staff, including practice
managers, nurses, case managers, medical assistants.
This year's conference features two dynamic keynote speakers, a
fabulous panel of medical and community experts, and examples of community best
practices including Community
Solutions to Address Avoidable Emergency Department Use; Beyond the
Medical Home - Connecting Practices & Communities; Using Health
Information Technology to Build Interconnected Communities; and Community Hospitals Improving Health, and more!
REGISTRATION WILL BEGIN MID-FEBRUARY - BE SURE TO CHECK THE QC WEBSITE FOR CONFERENCE DETAILS! |
Pressure Ulcer Prevention Collaborative
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Maine Pressure Ulcer Prevention Collaborative
As part of the Aligning Forces for Quality initiative, Quality Counts announces the launch the
"Maine Pressure Ulcer Prevention Collaborative", a systems-based, nurse-led improvement
effort to improve pressure ulcer prevention in hospitals and long-term care
facilities, and to improve the coordination of care across the continuum. This multi-stakeholder
effort is being convened and jointly supported by the Dirigo Health Agency's Maine Quality Forum, Quality
Counts, and the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, Division of
Licensing and Regulatory Services.
Data reported by Maine hospitals and long term care
facilities suggests that there is variation in pressure ulcer prevalence,
representing an important opportunity for improving patient-centered care while
also reducing use of expensive health care resources.
The Pressure Ulcer Prevention Collaborative, led by a
Steering Committee of key stakeholders, will work with hospital and long term
care "partners" in a year-long collaborative.
The focus will be on using a team approach to improve care in and across hospital and long term care communities.
Facilities
selected for participation in this effort will identify teams
that will work on adopting key strategies aimed to reduce the incidence of
pressure ulcers and on improving coordination of care between partnering
organizations through both on- site and telephonic learning sessions.
Hospitals and long term care facilities are being invited to
join the collaborative by committing to
support the activity of a team approach
to pressure ulcer prevention improvement.
For more information contact: Deborah Mattin,
RN, Project Director, ME Pressure Ulcer Prevention Collaborative, Phone:
603-918-8368, Email: debmattin@comcast.net
Visit the 'Improving Hospital Care' portion of the Quality Counts website for additional
information. |
Quality
Counts Leads Effort to Promote Behavioral Health Integration
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Behavioral
Health Integration Metrics System Initiative To Promote
Integrated
Care
With support from
a $230,000, 3-year grant from the Maine Health Access Foundation
(MeHAF), Quality
Counts has begun planning for the development of a statewide system for collecting and
reporting data regarding the effectiveness of health integration efforts in a
variety of settings in Maine. Quality Counts will be convening a group of partners that
include consumers, providers, payers, employers, policymakers and other
stakeholders to research and develop metrics that can help improve care, guide
public policy decisions and payment reforms, and help consumers make more
informed choices about healthcare settings and providers.
Using knowledge gained in a MeHAF funded pilot in 2008-2009, which
demonstrated that behavioral health integration metrics
could be developed and collected on a small scale, participants will
be developing a refined set of measures that are aligned with similar
efforts around the country and creating an infrastructure for the
collection, analysis and reporting of state-wide data. Planned areas
of focus include consumer satisfaction and outcomes, provider
satisfaction and financial impact.
Input into this process is being sought from all those with an
interest in health care integration and the use of data to improve
the quality and effectiveness of primary and behavioral care in
Maine.
An
initial planning meeting is scheduled for March 26th, 12 noon, at the Quality Counts
office in Manchester. If you are interested in joining the group or would like more
information, please contact Georges Nashan, Project Director, at g.nashan@mainenetwork.org,
or 942-2844.
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Aligning Forces for Quality Initiative - Part II: Diversity
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Series: What exactly is Aligning Forces for Quality (AF4Q)?
"Aligning Forces for Quality" (AF4Q)
is the name of a set of statewide improvement efforts that aim to align
activities in three key areas that drive improvements in healthcare quality in
Maine:
* Engaging consumers to understand that quality matters,
quality varies, and people
have a role in improving their health care.
* Performance measurement and public reporting of quality
data
* Capacity to help healthcare professionals improve the quality
of care
In addition, there is also a focus within AF4Q improvement efforts to build
nurse leadership, encourage diversity and improve the equity of healthcare.
The organization behind the research and management of AF4Q is the Robert Wood
Johnson Foundation (RWJF). Across the country, RWJF is working with 15
AF4Q communities to improve the overall quality of healthcare within their
region. We are very fortunate that Quality Counts, in conjunction with
the Maine Health Management Coalition and the Maine Quality Forum, were
selected to participate.
Through a series of articles in this and subsequent e-newsletters, we will
explore the key components of the AF4Q effort in Maine, beginning with consumer engagement which was featured last month, and now with the topic of diversity.
Part II : Diversity
While we are working hard within AF4Qto
improve the quality of care for all Mainers, we have a special focus
on diverse populations based on racial, ethnic, language and income
differences.
National research
suggests thatpeople with diverse backgrounds don't always receive the
same quality of care. We want to develop better mechanisms to
measure the quality of care received by diverse populations in Maine,
so our first focus is on data collection. AF4Q is working
closely with several hospitals and the Maine Hospital Association
to provide updated training on collecting diversity data for Maine
hospitals, as well as other organizations. Also in 2010 we will
be piloting training for physician practices using electronic medical
records. The University of New England's Center for
Transcultural Health will be helping with these initiatives.
Meanwhile, Central Maine Medical Center and Mercy Hospital are
participating in an AF4Q-sponsored
national collaborative for participating hospitals to work together
to identify, test and assess strategies to provide timely, effective
language services to patients with limited English proficiency.
The program focuses on how hospital staff can better structure
and manage language services programs in order to have effective,
efficient and timely communication with patients who speak little
English. The hospitals will participate and collaborate through
a 'learning network' structure to test new ideas, quantify results
and share lessons learned
As we develop better understandings of the quality of care received
by diverse populations, we will incorporate that learning into our
ongoing quality improvement initiatives. In that way we can
ensure that over time all Mainers have access to equitable quality of
healthcare no matter their background.
For more information contact: Ted Rooney RN, MPH, Aligning Forces
for Quality Project Leader & Pathways to Excellence Project
Leader, Ph: 207-729-4929, Email: trooney@healthandwork.com.
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Maine Patient Centered Medical Home Pilot - Update
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Maine Patient Centered Medical Home Pilot Begins!
The Maine Patient Centered
Medical Home (PCMH) Pilot was officially launched in January 2010. The
3-year pilot includes 22
adult and 4 pediatric practices from communities across the state that are working together and
with payers to redesign practice to a more patient-centered model of
care. Participating practices commit to achieving national
recognition standards and work to meet established core expectations;
to date, 24 Pilot practices have achieved NCQA PPC-PCMH recognition. The
major private payers & MaineCare have committed to providing participating
practices with alternative payment that recognizes the value of the
PCMH model.
Pilot practices also commit to working
with quality improvement coaches, and participating in a learning
collaborative. Practice teams will be convening for their second full day Learning
Session on Friday, February 12, 2010 at
the Maple Hill Farm and Conference Center where they will focus on
improving access to care and building practice-based care management
programs. Presentations from
all PCMH
Learning Sessions are posted on the Quality Counts website.
The
Dirigo Health Agency's Maine Quality Forum, Quality Counts, and the
Maine Health Management Coalition are the conveners of this
multi-stakeholder effort,
which offers an exciting and promising approach to transforming
healthcare as it supports both the practice transformation and the
payment reform required to improve primary care. The ultimate
goal of the Patient Centered Medical Home initiative is to sustain
and revitalize primary care both to improve health outcomes for all
Maine people and to reduce overall healthcare costs.
For more information on the
Maine PCMH Pilot, see http://www.mainequalitycounts.org/patient-centered-medical-home/main/
or contact Sue Butts-Dion at tel. 283.1590, or sbutts@maine.rr.com.
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New QC Member Profile
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Maine Mental Health Partners
Maine Mental Health Partners (MMHP) was
established in 2008 to promote and maintain a high quality,
integrated system
of mental health providers and services that is collaborative, well coordinated
and community oriented. MMHP's vision is
to deliver effective treatment that assures the best outcomes for
consumers. They are committed to
improving the delivery of mental healthcare in Maine by bridging the distance between
providers, pooling resources to reduce costs and connecting people to quality
care. Ascribing to evidence-based, cost-conscious models they coordinate care
and clinical approaches to improve the recovery process for consumers.
MMHP headquarters are
located at 78 Atlantic Place,
South Portland, Maine
and their service area encompasses the 11 southernmost counties within the
MaineHealth region. MMHP has 56
administrative employees and 766 who are employed within their network of
providers.
The organization became a
member of Quality Counts to join others who are committed to providing quality
care and to grow their mission to improve mental healthcare in Maine. |
| Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Extends AF4Q Support in Maine |
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RWJF Selects Two Maine Initiatives for Funding
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As part of the Aligning Forces for Quality effort to improve health care quality and reduce disparities,
the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) has selected nine organizations from across the country to receive awards through the Aligning Forces for Quality (AF4Q): Development Fund, including two Maine based efforts.
The Development Fund expands upon RWJF's commitment to lift the quality of health care provided in targeted AF4Q communities across the nation, and provides local organizations with the opportunity to develop innovative and exemplary practices in three focus areas:
- Health Information Technology (HIT)
- Patient-Centered Care
- Payment Reform
Projects were selected from applicants from AF4Q communities, and included two Maine recipients:
1) Maine Health Management Coalition - to develop community-based payment reform pilot project
2) Quality Counts - to develop a model for improving patient-centered care using patient
empowerment andbased on its work on the Patient Centered Medical Home Pilot.
"Health reform is a national issue, but changes in the health care system are being made locally, in hospitals and physician offices throughout our Aligning Forces for Quality communities," said Anne F. Weiss, senior program officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and director of the Foundation's Quality/Equality Team. "We want to enhance local efforts to improve the quality of care, because what happens in one community has the potential to inform others and significantly improve health care nationwide. The Development Fund will allow communities to explore innovations in three areas that
are front-and-center in Federal policy efforts to improve the health care delivery system."
To learn more, visit the Robert Wood Johnson Website. | |
Please visit our website www.mainequalitycounts.org to get updates on our programs, learn about quality initiatives across the state, view our partner and member organizations and participate in our online discussion forum!
If you are not on our mailing list, please sign up here!
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