Specialists get a shot at patient-centered medical home model

on March 29, 2013  |  Permalink  | Comments (2)

Topics: Cardiovascular, Service Lines, Primary Care, Chronic Care Management, Methodologies, Performance Improvement, Patient-Focused Care, Care Transformation, Medical Home, Physician Issues

Megan Tooley, Cardiovascular Roundtable

This week, the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) launched a recognition program that aims to extend its successful Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) model beyond primary care to specialty practices. The new Patient-Centered Specialty Practice (PCSP) designation program provides clear guidelines for specialists looking to establish a role in patient-centered “medical neighborhoods,” and will recognize practices committed to providing team-based, coordinated care and enhancing communication with providers and patients across the continuum.

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Specialists get a shot at patient-centered medical home model

2011 HF management performance measures stress cross-continuum coordination

on May 15, 2012  |  Permalink

Topics: Public Reporting, Management Tools, Performance Improvement, Process Improvement, Care Coordination, Methodologies, Chronic Care Management, Continuum Integration, Medical Cardiology, Cardiovascular, Service Lines, Readmissions, Quality

Nicole MacMillan, Cardiovascular Roundtable

In late April, the American College of Cardiology Foundation (ACCF), the American Heart Association (AHA), and the American Medical Association- Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement (AMA- PCPI) released an updated set of performance measures for heart failure management. The measures, an update of the 2005 ACC/ AHA HF performance measures, place an increased emphasis on coordinated, cross-continuum care, while eight past measures deemed redundant and no longer useful were retired. Of the nine total measures, two are focused on the inpatient setting, five on the outpatient setting, and two bridge both settings.

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2011 HF management performance measures stress cross-continuum coordination

Education is key for generalists managing heart failure

on February 15, 2012  |  Permalink

Topics: Medical Cardiology, Cardiovascular, Service Lines, Physician Issues, Chronic Care Management, Methodologies, Performance Improvement, Clinical Skills, Skill Development, Workforce

Nicole MacMillan

A recent Canadian study, published in the February 2012 issue of the American Heart Journal adds fuel to the ongoing debate over who should be caring for heart failure patients. Researchers from the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences in Toronto, ON have been able to better determine the reason for differing outcomes in heart failure patients depending on the type of physician administering care.

Overall, the study found that patients treated by cardiologists fared better than those treated by generalists, though the authors caveat that their conclusions are “multifactorial and complex.”

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Education is key for generalists managing heart failure