A pilot program was created by the network's primary care leadership team at Massachusetts General Hospital. A population health management program was implemented for chronic disease management. The investigators evaluated quality of care process and outcome measures over the first six months of the program and compared practices assigned a central population health coordinator to those not assigned this support.
A pilot program was created by the network's primary care leadership team at Massachusetts General Hospital. They hired and allocated 4 population health coordinators (PHCs) as part of a pilot project to centralize population health management efforts to improve quality of care for chronic disease management. The network did not have sufficient resources to implement a PHC in all of the 18 network practices. So the program's team invited practice leaders to participate and the PHCs were allocated by program's leadership team based on a variety of factors including responses from the practice leader, baseline quality scores, size of the practice, nature of the practice (health center vs not), and location of the practice (on campus or community based). These decisions were made in a way that sought to equitably distribute available PHC resources within the practice network as a way to get network buy-in and maximize the impact of the program, both for practices with and without PHCs. In this study, the investigators evaluated quality of care process and outcome measures over the first six months of the chronic disease management program. The investigators hypothesized that practices assigned a central PHC would have greater performance increases in quality measures compared to practices that were not assigned a PHC.
Study Type
OBSERVATIONAL
Enrollment
108,000
Massachusetts General Hospital
Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Difference in differences in Low density lipoprotein (LDL) goal achievement over the follow-up period comparing PHC to non-PHC practices
Among patients with diabetes and cardiovascular disease
Time frame: 6 months
Difference in differences in Hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) goal achievement over the follow-up period comparing PHC and non-PHC practices
Among patients with diabetes
Time frame: 6 months
Difference in differences in Blood pressure (BP) goal achievement over the follow-up period comparing PHC and non-PHC practices
Among patients with diabetes and hypertension
Time frame: 6 months
Difference in differences in proportion of patients completing breast cancer screening over the follow-up period comparing PHC and non-PHC practices
Time frame: 6 months
Difference in differences in proportion of patients completing cervical cancer screening over the follow-up period comparing PHC and non-PHC practices
Time frame: 6 months
Difference in differences in proportion of patients completing colorectal cancer screening over the follow-up period comparing PHC and non-PHC practices
Time frame: 6 months
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