Partnership HealthPlan has always encouraged and promoted high quality care for our members. We encourage excellence in care through our Quality Improvement Program (QIP), a program which is very familiar to all primary care clinicians and practice sites in our network. We have more recently developed a QIP program for our capitated hospitals and for the pharmacies in our network.

To support quality, we hold educational webinars on important topics related to this subject. We also provide financial support for clinics and practitioners to participate in quality improvement projects, like the Coleman Collaborative, an endeavor to improve work flow and clinic operations, and Project ECHO, a UC Davis-based educational project geared at improving chronic pain management.

We offer so many quality programs now that it can be hard to keep track of them all. To help, we decided to set up the “Partnership Improvement Academy.” The Academy can be easily found on our website, but the link is also here: http://www.partnershiphp.org/Provider/MC_PHCAcademy.htm.

There are several new quality education programs on the near horizon, and we want to make sure all clinicians in our network are aware of them. Four that we want to highlight in particular are:

1. A one-day continuing medical education program on how to effectively manage chronic pain patients. It will take place on Sunday, March 2, at Touro University in Vallejo. More information is available at: http://www.partnershiphp.org/Provider/HEDIS%20and%20QI/HEDIS%20Page/Academy/Att%201_ChronicPainManagment_FINAL_1%2027%2014.pdf.pdf.

2. Advance. This is a free, 10-month long program that prepares participants to lead and sustain health care quality improvement initiatives. The faculty for this program are nationally-known experts in the field of quality improvement. Participation is limited to 15 sites, so early applications are encouraged. More information can be found at: http://www.partnershiphp.org/Provider/HEDIS%20and%20QI/HEDIS%20Page/Academy/ADVANCE%20Program%20Description.pdf.

3. ABC’s of QI. This is a superb one-day conference which will help clinics learn how to create quality aim statements, how to use data to drive your work, and how to test changes. It will take place March 14 in Redding. More information can be found here: http://www.partnershiphp.org/Provider/HEDIS%20and%20QI/HEDIS%20Page/Academy/ABCs%20of%20Quality%20Improvement_Redding.pdf.

4. Improving Quality: Ideas You Can Use. This is another one-day conference on March 27 in Santa Rosa and will help clinics develop actionable quality improvement projects. The keynote speaker is Dr. Rishi Manchanda, author of Upstream Doctors. Information can be found at: http://www.phcqiconference2014.eventbrite.com.