In fall 2009, SNI launched the Seamless Care Center Initiative, a two-year program to further the quality goals of public hospital primary care clinics. As distinct from past SNI initiatives where the program focuses on one important improvement topic, this initiative combines the activities and measures of clinical quality and operations improvements. The program will support five CAPH-member hospital systems’ intensive improvement work across each county’s clinic network.
The goals of the Seamless Care Center Initiative are to:
· Improve health status of thousands of low-income patients
· Address health care disparities
· Implement reliable, safe and efficient care, based on clinical evidence and best practices for prevention and disease care
· Spread clinical quality, effective chronic care disease management, operational efficiency, and access improvements
· Build the resources needed to manage ongoing large-scale improvement work in primary care
The program has two year-long courses of trainings: 1) Clinical Quality and Effective Chronic Disease Management, and 2) Operational Efficiency and Access to Care. Participating county systems will choose one of the two program focus areas for clinic staff project work and management education in 2010, and will work on the other program focus area in 2011. SNI is collaborating with experts from the Institute for Healthcare Communications to lead trainings in improving patient experience and effective patient communications, and is continuing a five year partnership with experts Coleman Associates to improve operational efficiency and access.
This work is made possible by the California HealthCare Foundation.