Father of Chronic Care Model Meets with CAPH Board of Directors

Dr. Edward Wagner, the man behind the Chronic Care Model (which summarizes the basic elements for improving care in health systems at the community, organization, practice and patient levels) met with the CAPH Board of Directors in Oakland on Jan. 19.  He led a discussion of chronic care improvement leadership and placed chronic disease management within the context of the need for large-scale quality improvement efforts and primary care redesign (view his presentation on the SNI website).  His visit to California was in support of the new SNI program SEED: Spreading Effective and Efficient Diabetes Care in California’s Public Hospital Systems.  For more information on Dr. Wagner’s organization, Improving Chronic Illness Care, and on the Chronic Care Model, click here.

“About 40,000 people each year — about 22% of ER patients — go to the emergency room at LA County-USC hospital with health problems that do not qualify as true emergencies”, cites the Los Angeles Times in their Jan. 22 article about chronic users of the emergency room in place of primary care. This type of overuse can put a strain on ERs which serve the uninsured and working poor, and can elevate care costs to the breaking point. LAC+USC has a budding program in place that identifies frequent users, provides case management, and connects them with a primary care home, dramatically reducing hospital costs. Click here to read the entire article.

The latest data on health care quality indicates that the overall quality of the U.S. health care system is improving, but providers are missing important chances to help Americans avoid disease or serious complications, according to annual reports issued Jan. 11 by the Dept. of Health & Human Services' (HHS) Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The 2006 National Healthcare Quality Report and National Healthcare Disparities Report both found that the use of proven prevention strategies lags significantly behind other gains in health care. For example, only 48 percent of adults with diabetes received all three recommended screenings—blood sugar tests, foot exams and eye exams—to prevent disease complications. AHRQ estimates about $2.5 billion could be saved each year by eliminating hospitalizations related to diabetes complications.

This report adds a measure of urgency to SNI’s newly launched chronic care improvement program, SEED (Spreading Effective and Efficient Diabetes Care in California’s Public Hospital Systems).

Diabetes Care Trainings Available from Whittier Institute for Diabetes and Kaiser Permanente

Please see the SNI Calendar for dates and fees for the four programs being offered by the Whittier Institute for Diabetes in San Diego.  Program titles are: Basics of Diabetes Care and Management; Demystifying the Diabetic Diet; Initiating and Intensifying Insulin and Incretins: The Art & Science; and 5-Day Comprehensive Diabetes Education and Management. CEUs are available for RNs and RDs.  To register, please email or call (858) 626-5696.

In addition, Kaiser Permanente also provides FREE diabetes care management trainings to community and public hospital health care providers. Attendees will learn diabetes management therapies, increase patient care and education skills, discuss insulin therapy, and receive CDE credits in the process. For more information, visit the SNI Calendar.

CAPH/SNI Language Access Advisory Committee Meeting

The next CAPH Language Access Advisory Committee meeting will be held on the evening of Mar. 27 at the Westin LAX. This meeting will be a great opportunity for committee members to share experiences, best practices, address challenges and support each other in the efforts to improve language access for LEP patients in public hospitals. Among other things, committee meetings have facilitated the sharing of a language identification sheet, or “point-to card” which will soon be available on SNI’s website. Additionally, the committee is in the process of piloting a clinician language assessment tool with Kaiser. The California Endowment (TCE) will also be holding a March 28-29 conference, which is open to all CAPH Language Access Advisory Committee members. If you have any questions please contact Erin Bowman, Program Coordinator at SNI, at (510) 874-7119.