Primary Care Collaborative Receives Transforming Clinical Practice Initiative Award

WASHINGTON DC – The Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative (PCPCC) is one of 39 health care collaborative networks selected to participate in the Transforming Clinical Practice Initiative, announced today by Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell. The PCPCC will receive up to $566,433 in the first year to provide technical assistance support to help equip clinicians across the country with tools, information, and network support needed to improve quality of care, increase patients’ access to information, and spend health care dollars more wisely.

“Supporting doctors and other health care professionals to change the way they work is critical to improving quality and spending our health care dollars more wisely,” said Secretary Burwell. “These awards will give patients more of the information they need to make informed decisions about their care and give clinicians access to information and support to improve care coordination and quality outcomes.”

As a Support and Alignment Network (SAN), the PCPCC will support practice teams through its network of more than 1300 organizations (representing clinicians, health plans, patients, researchers, and policy makers) to expand their quality improvement capacity, learn from one another, and achieve common goals of improved care, better health, and reduced cost. The network will provide technical assistance on how to establish deeper patient relationships and coordinated interactions with health systems and communities through a team-based approach that will help participating clinicians meet the initiative’s phases of transformation and associated milestones, clinical and operational results. To accomplish these goals, the PCPCC will partner with the Institute for Patient- and Family-Centered Care (IPFCC), YMCA of the USA (Y-USA), and Planetree. “It is our contention – and that of our broad and diverse constituency – that the U.S. health care system will only achieve its full potential by first improving the way we deliver primary care, in partnership with patients, families and communities,” said Marci Nielsen, PhD, MPH, PCPCC’s chief executive officer. “We commend HHS for providing the critical resources ambulatory care practices have long awaited to fully move them into better models of care delivery.”

Patient and family caregiver partnerships need to become a much more earnest part of health care delivery reform if practices are truly going to “walk the talk” of being patient-centered medical homes. At the core of the PCPCC SAN award is increased support for both clinicians and patients to learn new strategies for working together to guide quality improvement activities in the practice. “Without patient insight, we often create solutions that are costly, do not improve care, and fail to better health outcomes,” said Bev Johnson, CEO of the IPFCC and PCPCC Board Director. “When we listen, patients share valuable information that we need to hear and act on.”

These awards are part of a comprehensive strategy advanced by the Affordable Care Act that enables new levels of coordination, continuity, and integration of care, while transitioning volume-driven systems to value-based, patient-centered, health care services. It builds upon successful models and programs such as the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing Organization Program, Partnership for Patients with Hospital Engagement Networks, and Accountable Care Organizations.  

For more information on the Transforming Clinical Practice Initiative, please visit: http://innovation.cms.gov/initiatives/Transforming-Clinical-Practices/

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About PCPCC: Founded in 2006, the Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative (PCPCC) is dedicated to advancing an effective and efficient health system built on a strong foundation of primary care and the patient-centered medical home (PCMH). The PCPCC achieves its mission in partnership with its members, experts and thought leaders who are dedicated to transforming the U.S. health care system through delivery reform, payment reform, patient and family caregiver partnerships, and employee benefit redesign. Today, PCPCC’s membership represents more than 1,300 medical home stakeholders and supporter organizations throughout the United States. For more information about the PCPCC please visit:  www.pcpcc.org