Publications Available from the
Maine Consortium for Clinical Office System Improvement

RESOURCE MANUALS

Quality Improvement:  Clinical Office Systems - Section I

This manual is intended to assist in the review of your office practice and help you establish a comprehensive approach to prevention, wellness, and chronic disease management through application of the Enhanced Primary Care Model.

Section I contains practical information on using the quality improvement process to redesign clinical office systems and enhance care.  Section I includes a flexible set of reference materials and practical tools such as flow sheets, reminder stickers, post cards, and protocols to guide clinicians and staff.  To provide additional support, Section I also includes contacts of individuals who have experience implementing quality improvement projects in the clinical office setting and who are willing to give advice and support.

Topics included in Section I chapters:

Quality Improvement Process and Methods:
   ü       How to choose a QI project
   ü       Developing a QI team
   ü       QI Planning and strategy
   ü       Measurement and process
   ü       Chart audit procedures
   ü       Review of care processes
   ü       Process flow mapping
   ü       Rapid process redesign
   ü       Monitoring the QI project  

Adopting or adapting practice guidelines
   ü       Evidence based guidelines
   ü       Four steps to adopting practice guidelines
   ü       Assignment of responsibility for implementation
   ü       Guideline implementation

Practice assessments
             ü       Identifying patients eligible for care protocols
    ü       Individual risk assessments
      ü       Practice-wide (population) risk assessments
      ü       Selecting information systems

Quality Office Systems
            ü       Patient reminders
     ü       Provider prompts
     ü       Practice tracking systems
     ü       Written procedures for implementing quality systems

Engaging the Patient
            ü       Stages of change
     ü       Keys to successfully activating and supporting the patient
     ü       Communicating with other health care professionals

Quality Improvement:  Clinical Office Systems - Section II:  Chronic Disease Management

Section II addresses the application of quality improvement tools and methods explored in Section I to specific health conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and asthma.  Chapters contained in Section II aim to provide practical guidance on implementing and sustaining quality improvement efforts focused on chronic disease management by using clinical office systems.  Section II includes ready-to-use tools for chronic disease management, as well as approaches used by clinical practices across the country.

The material contained in Section II builds upon the Enhanced Primary Care model introduced in Section I.  Section II chapters are designed to be used in conjunction with Section I.

Section II - Diabetes Mellitus:

The goal of Section II is to provide pragmatic guidance and tools to assist the implementation and integration of a sustainable quality improvement project to manage diabetes among primary care patients.  This chapter contains information and tools to assist all phases of quality improvement for diabetes care, from planning and development through to outcome measurement.

Topics included in Section II – Diabetes Mellitus:

  ü       Introduction to quality diabetes management
ü       Defining the burden of diabetes in Maine
ü       Selection and implementation of diabetic care guidelines
ü       Assessing the current level of diabetes care in your practice
ü       Creating a diabetes registry
ü       Diabetes care audit procedures
ü       Diabetes tracking and reminder systems
ü    Engaging the patient in diabetes self-management

Section II - Cardiovascular Disease:

[This section is forthcoming, Summer 2000]

Bibliography

The COSI Reference List includes a range of seminal and timely articles concerning clinical office system quality improvement, drawing upon research from national projects addressing quality improvement efforts with preventive services and chronic disease management.

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