SE Michigan Beacon Community makes headway on target measures
The Southeast Michigan Beacon Community (SEMBC) announced that it is gaining some traction in achieving its target measures.
As part of its clinical transformation efforts, the Beacon community—which encompasses 46 SEMBC-affiliated private practice and federally qualified health center sites—said it has met six of seven target measures in the care of patients with type 2 diabetes.
After it was formed in March of 2011, SEMBC’s primary goal was leveraging health IT and clinical transformation strategies to achieve specific targets in high impact quality measures related to the care of patients with type 2 diabetes, according to SEMBC’s announcement.
The community aimed to achieve a 5-percentage point increase for the following measures: A1c testing, LDL testing, foot exams, blood pressure less than 140/90, A1c values less than 8.0 and eye exams; diabetic patients with A1c values greater than 9.0 or unknown were targeted for a 5 percentage point decrease.
With the exception of eye exams, SEMBC achieved a 5 percent improvement based on a comparison of baseline data to the most recent reports.
The greatest improvement (17 percent) was the proportion of patients having an A1c value >9.0 or unknown. Measures documenting patients having an A1c value < 8.0 and patients having blood pressure less than 140/90 also experienced greater than 10 percent improvement, according to SEMBC.
The Beacon community attributed its success to actions including:
- increased use of EHR system clinical decision support prompts and reminders;
- modification of practice workflow
- increased use of EHR and non-EHR patient educational materials;
- increased practice-level integration of health IT;
- the use of Patient Health Navigators to assist patients with the social determinants of health; and
- care quality and practice management report reviews.
"We couldn't be more pleased with the results and are extremely proud of the work that was done by our affiliated physicians and their staff," said SEMBC Director Terrisca Des Jardins in the announcement.