Safety Net Medical Home Initiative
In May 2008, The Commonwealth Fund, Qualis Health and the MacColl Institute for Healthcare Innovation at the Group Health Research Institute initiated a demonstration project to help safety net primary care clinics become high-performing patient-centered medical homes (PCMHs) and achieve benchmark levels of quality, efficiency and patient experience. The goal of the Safety Net Medical Home Initiative (“the Initiative”) is to develop and demonstrate a replicable and sustainable implementation model for medical home transformation.
The Initiative calls for partnerships between safety net providers and community stakeholders to work together towards a new model of primary care delivery that is recognized and rewarded for its holistic approach to patient care. Policy activation is critical in this transformation, and all partners in this Initiative are expected to participate in Medicaid and other policy reform efforts in their respective regions.
Five Regional Coordinating Centers were selected to participate in the demonstration project, and each partnered with 12-15 safety net clinics in their state. These collaboratives will receive technical assistance on practice re-design topics such as enhanced access, care coordination, and patient experience. They will also receive funding to support a Medical Home Facilitator (who will lead clinic-based quality improvement projects) and other activities. The work of the Regional Coordinating Centers began in April 2009 and the Initiative will continue through April 2013.
Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative
The Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative (PRHI) is an independent catalyst for improving healthcare safety and quality in southwestern Pennsylvania. It operates on the premise that dramatic quality improvement is the best cost-containment strategy for healthcare.
Created in 1997, PRHI was the first regional consortium of medical, business and civic leaders to address healthcare safety and quality improvement as a social and business imperative. Turning its own community into a demonstration lab, PRHI strives to accelerate improvement and set the pace for the nation. Its experiment reflects three principles:
- Healthcare is local. Federal policy changes alone cannot achieve needed reform.
- Those who work at the point of care develop quality and safety improvements that work and last.
- Continuous improvement in quality and safety requires the highest possible standard, namely perfection. To settle for less limits achievement.
PRHI offers healthcare leaders the necessary tools, expertise, education, models and networks to perfect patient care and safety in their organizations. Using the Toyota Production System as a model, PRHI developed a quality improvement method for clinical settings known as Perfecting Patient Caresm.
Thousands across the nation have already learned how Perfecting Patient Caresm can transform healthcare. Together, they demonstrate the value of quality engineering in any healthcare setting--from neighborhood clinics, to hospitals and nursing homes.
PRHI is a nonprofit operating arm of the Jewish Healthcare Foundation with funding from local corporations, foundations, health plans, and government contracts and grants.
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