ACP: Center for Practice Innovation - Annotated Bibliography

Running a Practice

Annotated Bibliography

American College of Physicians Resources
Government Sponsored
Quality Related
Other policies, programs, websites, etc. of interest
Condition Specific Sites

American College of Physicians Resources

Advance Care Planning
Various resources for Internists and patients.

The American College of Physicians
The American College of Physicians (ACP) is the nation's largest medical specialty society. Its mission is to enhance the quality and effectiveness of health care by fostering excellence and professionalism in the practice of medicine.

Medical Computing
Information and links pertaining to practice management systems, hand-held devices, EHRs, etc.

Medical Laboratory Evaluation
Customer Focus and Operational Excellence -- Our mission is to administer a service-oriented proficiency testing program that provides technical and educational tools necessary to assess, monitor and improve the quality of laboratory testing.With medical technologists and multilingual staff experienced in international markets and shipping activities, MLE provides on-site, immediate direction. Our goal is to go beyond the mere "number crunching" of proficiency testing data to educating, informing and working with the participant to improve the quality of patient care.

Practice Management Center
The Practice Management Center provides free assistance to members covering the full spectrum of business issues associated with running and working in a medical practice.

Quality Improvement, Pay-for- Performance and Practice Redesign
Quality improvement, performance measures and pay-for-performance are at the forefront of the agendas of ACP, other medical associations, government agencies, purchasers, payors, legislators, the news media and the general public. The College has been engaged with many aspects of this issue for several years. ACP's long-standing commitment to evidence-based medicine, coupled with its legislative experience and relationships within organized medicine, has uniquely positioned it to work with all the major stakeholders to shape the debate.

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Government Sponsored

2005 DHHS "National Healthcare Quality Report"

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
AHRQ's "goals and research priorities are to: *Support improvement in health outcomes. *Strengthen quality measurement and improvement. *Identify strategies to improve access, foster appropriate use, and reduce unnecessary expenditures."

AHRQ National Resource Center for Health Information Technology
AHRQ created the National Resource Center for Health Information Technology to help the health care community make the leap into the Information Age. In addition to providing technical assistance, the National Resource Center shares new knowledge and findings that have the potential to transform everyday clinical practice.

AHRQ Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) Improvement Guide: Practical Strategies for Improving the Patient Care Experience
Published in October 2003, The CAHPS Improvement Guide is a comprehensive resource for health plans and medical groups seeking to improve their performance in the domains of quality measured by the CAHPS Health Plan Survey. You may want to use this guide to help your organization: cultivate an environment that encourages and sustains quality improvement; analyze the results of CAHPS surveys to identify strengths and weaknesses; and develop strategies for improving performance.

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)
The Physician Focused Quality Initiative site with link to PVRP The Physician Focused Quality Initiative builds upon ongoing CMS strategies and programs in other health care settings in order to: (1) assess the quality of care for key illnesses and clinical conditions that affect many people with Medicare, (2) support clinicians in providing appropriate treatment of the conditions identified, (3) prevent health problems that are avoidable, and (4) investigate the concept of payment for performance.

CMS Physician Quality Reporting Initiative
PQRI establishes a financial incentive for eligible professionals to participate in a voluntary quality reporting program. Eligible professionals who successfully report a designated set of quality measure on claims for dates of service from July 1 to December 31, 2007, may earn a bonus payment, subject to a cap, of 1.5% of total allowed charges for covered Medicare physician fee schedule services.

Don't Be Guilty of These Errors in Vaccine Storage and Handling
This list contains "frequently reported errors in vaccine storage and handling. Some of these errors are much more serious than others, but none of them should occur. Be sure your clinic or practice is not making errors such as these."

DHHS National Quality Measures Clearinghouse
A public repository for evidence-based quality measures and measure sets.

Health Disparities Collaboratives
"The Health Disparities Collaborative Web site is home for a community of learners who are committed to improving health care. Using the methodology of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement's Breakthrough Series Model, The Model for Improvement and the Chronic Care Model, healthcare providers are making a positive difference in the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans. This site provides the centralized portal for communication as well as a forum for sharing the challenges, successes, tools of the trade and lessons learned. With the support of the Health Resources and Services Administration's Bureau of Primary Health Care (HRSA/BPHC), which is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, along with our strategic state and national partnerships, we are Changing Practice, Changing Lives."

Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA)
The mission of HRSA's "Bureau of Primary Health Care (BPHC) is to increase access to comprehensive primary and preventive health care and to improve the health status of underserved and vulnerable populations. Actualizing this mission demands developing and modeling innovative strategies that will ensure the highest quality health care for these populations. The Quality Center was created to provide a coordinating point for quality-oriented activities."

HRSA Information Center
Publications, Resources and Materials available free of charge.

National Guideline Clearinghouse
A public resource for evidence-based clinical practice guidelines.

Quality Tools
Sponsored by AHRQ, this website is "a clearinghouse for practical, ready-to-use tools for measuring and improving the quality of health care."

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Quality Related

Ambulatory Care Quality Alliance
"In September 2004, the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), the American College of Physicians (ACP), America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), joined together to lead a collaborative effort for determining, under the most expedient timeframe, how to most effectively and efficiently improve performance measurement, data aggregation and reporting in the ambulatory care setting. The mission of this effort - named the Ambulatory Care Quality Alliance (AQA) - is to: improve health care quality and patient safety through a collaborative process in which key stakeholders agree on a strategy for measuring performance at the physician level; collecting and aggregating data in the least burdensome way; and reporting meaningful information to consumers, physicians and other stakeholders to inform choices and improve outcomes."

Clinical Microsystem Assessment Tool
(Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center Lebanon, New Hampshire, USA), posted on IHI website. "This tool may be used to assess how your clinical microsystem compares to the 10 key "success" characteristics of high-performing clinical microsystems."

The American Health Quality Association
"The American Health Quality Association is a charitable, educational, not-for-profit national membership association dedicated to health care quality through community-based, independent quality evaluation and improvement programs. AHQA represents Quality Improvement Organizations (QIOs) and professionals working to improve health care quality and patient safety."

Doctor's "Office Quality Information Technology (DOQ-IT)
Doctor's Office Quality Information Technology (DOQ-IT) promotes the adoption of electronic health record (EHR) systems and information technology (IT) in small-to-medium sized physician offices with a vision of enhancing access to patient information, decision support, and reference data, as well as improving patient-clinician communications. The DOQ-IT project offers an integrated approach to improving care for Medicare beneficiaries in the areas of diabetes, heart failure, coronary artery disease, hypertension, osteoarthritis, and preventive care."

ehrCentral
This website is filled with "recent and comprehensive information (to help you with) a successful Electronic Health Records (EHR) journey, (and) empowers you to deliver superior quality patient care and achieve maximum business profitability."

ImproveHealthCare.org
"ImproveHealthCare.org is an interactive environment that equips medical students, residents, and practicing physicians with cutting-edge information about health care policy and its effects on the practice of medicine. It is an ongoing project by Harvard Medical School with initial funding by The Commonwealth Fund. This site can be used in a number of ways to enrich the user's knowledge and assist educators in teaching health care policy to their students: 1) Personal Use of Cases - Medical students, residents, and physicians nationwide can access the cases on our site for free from their personal computers. 2) Use of the Cases in Facilitated Discussion - The cases are partly modeled on the format that is in place at the New Pathway curriculum at Harvard Medical School. 3) Curricular Reform - Contained within the cases are the bare essentials of a health care policy curriculum - covering topics like Medicare, the uninsured, health care financing, medical errors, and racial disparities - in a format that easily engages students with little or no exposure to these complex topics. 4) Interact With Leaders in Health Care - ImproveHealthCare will periodically host chat sessions with health policy leaders in academia, business, and government. These chat sessions will allow users to receive answers to questions that may not be immediately apparent in our cases or articles."

Improving Chronic Illness Care
Improving Chronic Illness Care (ICIC) is a national program of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, based at the MacColl Institute for Healthcare Innovation, within Group Health Cooperative of Seattle. Now in its fifth year, the program seeks to improve the care of the chronically ill through three main program components: Improvement Collaboratives: programs that bring together dozens of health care organizations to improve care for a certain chronic condition. Programs include the Breakthrough Series, operated collaboratively with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, as well as regional collaboratives; The Targeted Research Grants Program: funds studies addressing specific, field-relevant questions in chronic illness management; A Dissemination Program: provides technical assistance and support to organizations interested in improving chronic illness care.

The Institute for Healthcare Improvement
(IHI) is a "non-for-profit organization leading the improvement of health care throughout the world. IHI was founded in 1991 and is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts."

Quality Improvement Organization
"For twenty years, the Medicare Quality Improvement Organization (QIO) program has served a congressional mandate to improve the quality of health care services provided to people with Medicare, particularly among underserved populations. It also safeguards the integrity of the Medicare program by ensuring payment is made only for medically necessary services, and investigates beneficiary complaints about quality of care. under the direction of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the program consists of a national network of fifty-three QIOs responsible for each U.S. state, territory, and the District of Columbia."

Vanderbilt Center for Evidence-based Medicine
The Center's focus: "Educational Programs and Research Programs (Consumer and provider adherence factors; Role of incentives, media coverage, benefits structures, DTC, technology, EBM in health system transformation)."

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Other policies, programs, websites, etc. of interest

Accelerating Quality Improvement in Health Care: Strategies to Speed the Adoption and Diffusion of Innovations. National Committee for Quality Health Care. Washington DC. January 2003 http://www.nihcm.org/QualityProceedings.pdf

Brassard, M. and Ritter, D. (1994) The Memory Jogger: a Pocket Guide of Tools for Continuous Improvement and Effective Planning NH, GOAL/QPC [ISBN 1-879364-44-1]

Bridges to Excellence
Bridges to Excellence is a multi-state, multi-employer coalition developed by employers, physicians, healthcare services researchers and other industry experts. The BTE mission is to reward quality across the health care system, and is a grantee of the Robert Wood Johnson's Rewarding Results grant program. BTE is a not-for-profit organization created to encourage significant leaps in the quality of care by recognizing and rewarding health care providers who demonstrate that they deliver safe, timely, effective, efficient and patient-centered care. In addition to National Business Coalition on Health (NBCH), Bridges to Excellence participants include large employers, health plans, the National Committee or Quality Assurance, MEDSTAT and WebMD Health, among others. These organizations are united in their shared goal of improving health care quality through measurement, reporting, rewards and education.

The Center for Health System Change
The Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC) is a nonpartisan policy research organization located in Washington, D.C. HSC designs and conducts studies focused on the U.S. health care system to inform the thinking and decisions of policy makers in government and private industry. In addition to this applied use, HSC studies contribute more broadly to the body of health care policy research that enables decision makers to understand change and the national and local market forces driving that change.

The Commonwealth Fund
The Commonwealth Fund is a private foundation that aims to promote a high performing health care system that achieves better access, improved quality, and greater efficiency, particularly for society's most vulnerable, including low-income people, the uninsured, minority Americans, young children, and elderly adults.

A Dying Person's Guide to Dying from Home Care Guide for Advanced Cancer by Roger C. Bone, M.D.
Practical advice on the dying process. The entire book or individual chapters may be downloaded at no cost. "The central theme of the Home Care Guide for Advanced Cancer is that planning near the end of life is helpful. By thinking ahead about what could happen - and about how you will deal with problems if they do happen, you can create a better life and a better quality of life for yourself and for the people who love and care about you. What I have to say is for the person who, like myself, is dying. We, too, need to plan - to think ahead in order to fashion, out of the time remaining, the best of what is possible."

eHealth Initiative
"The eHealth Initiative and the Foundation for eHealth Initiative are independent, non-profit affiliated organizations whose missions are the same: to drive improvement in the quality, safety, and efficiency of healthcare through information and information technology."

Immunization Action Coalition
Publisher of immunization information, Vaccination Information Sheets, etc.

Institute for Clinical Systems Improvement
"The Institute for Clinical Systems Improvement (ICSI), a collaboration of health care organizations, is an objective voice dedicated to championing health care quality and to helping its members identify and accelerate the implementation of best clinical practices for their patients. The ICSI program has four components: improvement commitment, scientific groundwork for health care, support for improvement, and the Minnesota health quality agenda." (clinical guidelines & protocols)

Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI)
The "IHI is a not-for-profit organization driving the improvement of health by advancing the quality and value of health care. Founded in 1991 and based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, IHI offers comprehensive products and services. IHI is a reliable source of energy, knowledge, and support for a never-ending campaign to improve health care worldwide. The Institute helps accelerate change in health care by cultivating promising concepts for improving patient care and turning those ideas into action." (Books, videos, audio tapes, white papers, training courses)

The Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP)
Based in suburban Philadelphia, is the nation's only 501c (3) nonprofit organization devoted entirely to medication error prevention and safe medication use. ISMP represents over 30 years of experience in helping healthcare practitioners keep patients safe, and continues to lead efforts to improve the medication use process. The organization is known and respected worldwide as the premier resource for impartial, timely, and accurate medication safety information.

The Joint Commission Journal of Quality Improvement Microsystems in Healthcare Series
This "series of articles on microsystems is intended to provide useful ideas and methods that can be used in diverse clinical settings - outpatient, inpatient, skilled care, and home care - to create the conditions for sustained improvement in clinical quality and value in a way that is appreciated by patients and exciting to the front-line staff who serve them."

Joint Commission Resources, Inc. (JCR) JCR is a global, knowledge-based organization which disseminates information regarding accreditation, standards development and compliance, good practices, and health care quality improvement. Joint Commission Resources is dedicated to helping health care organizations world-wide to improve the quality of patient care and achieve peak performance. JCR is an affiliate of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO).

Medical Group Management Association
"The Medical Group Management Association (MGMA), founded in 1926, is the nation's principal voice for medical group practice. MGMA's 20,000 members manage and lead more than 12,000 organizations in which more than 242,000 physicians practice. MGMA leads the profession and assists members through information, education, networking and advocacy. Its core purpose is to continually improve the performance of medical group practice professionals and the organizations they represent."

MedEdPORTAL
is a "publishing venue through which faculty may disseminate their educational works. It was designed to promote collaboration and educational scholarship by facilitating the exchange of peer reviewed teaching resources such as tutorials, cases, lab manuals, assessment instruments, faculty development materials, etc."

National Academies Press (NAP)
NAP "was created by the National Academies to publish the reports issued by the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Research Council, all operating under a charter granted by the Congress of the United States. The NAP publishes more than 200 books a year on a wide range of topics in science, engineering, and health, capturing the most authoritative views on important issues in science and health policy. The institutions represented by the NAP are unique in that they attract the nation's leading experts in every field to serve on their award-winning panels and committees. This is the right place for definitive information on everything from space science to animal nutrition."

The National Committee for Quality Assurance
NCQA's mission is to improve the quality of health care. We do so by generating useful, understandable information about health care quality to help inform consumer and employer choice. We also work to generate information and feedback that help physicians, health plans and others to identify opportunities for improvement and make changes that enhance the quality of patient care.

Washington State Genetics Department, Quality Improvement Training Manual

Vacutainer Information

US Department of Labor Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Disposal of Contaminated Needles and Blood Tube Holders Used for Phlebotomy)

Becton, Dickinson and Company (BD) (Disposal of Contaminated Needles and Blood Tube Holders Used for Phlebotomy)

and (BD Vacutainer® Holders)

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Condition Specific Sites

AHRQ Treating Tobacco Use and Dependence Pathfinder
resources for clinicians on how to help patients stop smoking

American Cancer Society (for professionals)
information, CME, statistics, books, etc.

American Diabetes Association (for professionals)
clinical recommendations, patient resources, CME, etc.

National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
includes clinical practice guidelines, health information and publications, interactive tools and resources, continuing education opportunities, etc.

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Page updated: 05-10-06