Patient Experience of Care – All Green!

UH PCI Quality Update

By Todd Zeiger, MD, Quality Medical Director, UH Primary Care Institute

UH Primary Care Institute News | Summer 2019

Todd Zeiger, MD

The latest patient experience of care survey shows the UH Primary Care Institute is doing extremely well.  With a total of 21,524 patients surveyed, our patient satisfaction with providers is 94.09 percent and patient satisfaction with the office is 93.17 percent.

Marie Kuchynski, MD, is leading the PCI effort for patient experience of care.  She has created a committee that meets regularly to review PCI metrics regarding patient experience of care using the STATIT tool that reports summaries of our patient surveys.  The PCI scores continue to be extremely good overall, and she has is now working on a focused review that will identify opportunities for support to improve providers’ and office survey results.  

We applaud all the efforts by doctors, APPs and staff in providing excellent care for our patients.

Peer Review

We have expanded our efforts for quality assurance by developing a process for peer review using the UH Quality Institute process and documentation.  Our Quality Assurance Committee has been working  for more than three years to identify when system processes could be changed to minimize the risks for error, or to improve the quality of care.  The development of a peer review committee allows us to focus on the individual process in a peer-protected method.  

This truly is a peer process: Fellow PCI physicians volunteer on our committee to review any potential issues brought to light through PASS reporting or communication to the UH Compliance or Quality Institute. The intent is to help our peers improve care decisions through awareness and education.  If you are interested in becoming part of our peer review committee, please let me know.  

Quality Improvement Initiative for Hypertension Diagnosis and Management

In 2018, the UH Primary Care Institute as a whole treated 143,964 patients for hypertension (HTN).  Of these patients, 93,842 had their blood pressure controlled below 140/90.  (Although recent guidelines have lowered goal BP, national metrics currently still use 140/90 as the metric).  This is a 65.2 percent control rate.  National AHA data shows a control rate of 67.5 percent.  So compared to peers, we are on par – but we all have a great opportunity for improvement. 

We have launched a PCI-wide effort to help us all better identify and treat hypertension.  Our goal is to increase our control to greater than 75 percent over a year.  

The project is broken down in three waves.  The first two are focused on our support staff functions.  We have education modules that will be delivered live and be available on GPS.  UH Achieves awards will be given to our staff from PCI funding to encourage and reward participation.  

The modules focus on accurate BP measurement and introduce the concept of automated office blood pressure measurement, which follows the guidelines of the American Heart Association, as well as supporting Patient Self-Measured Blood Pressure Measurements for accurate home assessment.  A third education module will be delivered to PCI providers to give us CME-credited updates on HTN management so we learn concepts such as ‘rapid cycling’ and revise BP goals with treatment recommendations.  Any suggestions to help this project be successful are very welcome.

Also, the UH PCI Bedford practice is participating in an Ohio Medicaid-sponsored HTN Quality Improvement Project.  Lili Lustig, DO, and Taylor Orvosh, Practice Lead, are working together to lead this effort in their practice, with support from the project team.  We are very excited for their practice to learn with other practices in Ohio how to improve health outcomes.