Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2014 Aug 20;2(3):1100.
doi: 10.13063/2327-9214.1100. eCollection 2014.

The utah beacon experience: integrating quality improvement, health information technology, and practice facilitation to improve diabetes outcomes in small health care facilities

Janet Tennison  1 , Deepthi Rajeev  1 , Sarah Woolsey  1 , Jeff Black  1 , Steven J Oostema  1 , Christie North  1
Affiliations

The utah beacon experience: integrating quality improvement, health information technology, and practice facilitation to improve diabetes outcomes in small health care facilities

Janet Tennison et al. EGEMS (Wash DC). .

Abstract

Purpose: The Utah Improving Care through Connectivity and Collaboration (IC3) Beacon community (2010-2013) was spearheaded by HealthInsight, a nonprofit, community-based organization. One of the main objectives of IC(3) was to improve health care provided to patients with diabetes in three Utah counties, collaborating with 21 independent smaller clinics and two large health care enterprises. This paper will focus on the use of health information technology (HIT) and practice facilitation to develop and implement new care processes to improve clinic workflow and ultimately improve patients' diabetes outcomes at 21 participating smaller, independent clinics.

Innovation: Early in the project, we learned that most of the 21 clinics did not have the resources needed to successfully implement quality improvement (QI) initiatives. IC(3) helped clinics effectively use data generated from their electronic health records (EHRs) to design and implement interventions to improve patients' diabetes outcomes. This close coupling of HIT, expert practice facilitation, and Learning Collaboratives was found to be especially valuable in clinics with limited resources.

Findings: Through this process we learned that (1) an extensive readiness assessment improved clinic retention, (2) clinic champions were important for a successful collaboration, and (3) current EHR systems have limited functionality to assist in QI initiatives. In general, smaller, independent clinics lack knowledge and experience with QI and have limited HIT experience to improve patient care using electronic clinical data. Additionally, future projects like IC(3) Beacon will be instrumental in changing clinic culture so that QI is integrated into routine workflow.

Conclusion and discussion: Our efforts led to significant changes in how practice staff optimized their EHRs to manage and improve diabetes care, while establishing the framework for sustainability. Some of the IC(3) Beacon practices are currently smoothly transitioning to new models of care such as Patient-Centered Medical Homes. Thus, IC(3) Beacon has been instrumental in creating a strong community partnership among various organizations to meet the shared vision of better health and lower costs, and the experience over the last few years has helped the community prepare for the changing health care landscape.

Keywords: Health Information Technology; Quality Improvement; Standardized Data Collection.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Example of Graphical Feedback Presented to the Clinics
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Institute of Medicine . To err is human. Washington, DC: National Academy Press; 2000.
    1. Institute of Medicine . Crossing the quality chasm: a new health system for the 21st century. Washington, DC: National Academy Press; 2001. - PubMed
    1. DesRoches CM, Campbell EG, Vogeli C, Zheng J, Rao SR, Shields AE, et al. Electronic health records limited successes suggest more targeted uses. Health Affairs. 2010;29:4639–4646. - PubMed
    1. McCullough JS, Casey M, Moscovice I, Prasad S. The effect of health information technology on quality in U.S. hospitals. Health Affairs. 2010;29:4647–4654. - PubMed
    1. Murphy J. Impact of health IT on care quality: how are we doing 10 years after IOM’s crossing the quality chasm report? J Healthc Inf Manag. 2010 fall;24(4):7–9. [serial online]. [cited 18 April 2014]; Available from: http://www.himss.org/files/HIMSSorg/content/files/NursingInformatics/Imp....

LinkOut - more resources