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Health Access Network Receives Blue Ribbons for Quality Care

 

Lincoln, Maine – The Maine Health Management Coalition (MHMC) has devised a system that measures healthcare quality, complete with a blue ribbon ranking system called Pathways to Excellence.  Health Access Network (HAN) was recently honored with blue ribbons at all of their six primary care sites recognizing them for outstanding performance utilizing “best performances” in specific categories.  HAN submitted data for three categories.

 

Pathways to Excellence is a national Quality Improvement (QI) program recognizing primary care providers for outstanding performance.  Programs such as this set the standard for primary care sites.  As a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC), HAN’s mission is to offer patients a high quality, standardized process of care.  Pathways to Excellence helps monitor the progress, offering tools and training to help standardize operational and clinical procedures.  There are three QI surveys primary care sites must complete in order to obtain recognition.  To obtain a blue ribbon, the site needs to score at least 50 points.  The areas surveyed include assessing health risks, use of clinical guidelines /evidence based medicine, chronic illness registry, patient education, care /case management, and electronic prescribing.  The three categories HAN participated in were diabetes care, heart disease care and office systems.  Blue ribbons were awarded for all three or two out of three categories to Sarah Irving, M.D., William Jenkins, M.D., John Meserve, M.D., Eric Metzler, M.D., Noah Nesin, M.D., John Shannon, M.D., Randy Jackson, P.A.-C., Kevin Olsen, P.A.-C., Andrea Barr, F.N.P.-C., Thora House, F.N.P.-C., and Joye Jewell, F.N.P.-C.  Paulo Antunes, M.D. and Daniel Offret, P.A.-C. were unable to participate due to being a new site.

 

The MHMC shares this information with employer plan sponsors and consumers.  Aetna and CIGNA’s primary care pay for performance initiatives in the state are built off the MHMC’s system, and some insurance plans reduce or waive patient co-payments and sometimes deductibles for sites with blue ribbons.

 

For the MHMC’s primary care initiative, more than 250 primary care practice locations across the state submitted data on three main performance measures and were ranked on the MHMC’s website.  Insurance companies, employers and patients can view the performance based results and blue ribbon awards at www.mhmc.org.