AMGF participates in collaborative effort to find best practices in managing RA patients

The American Medical Group Foundation (AMGF) today announced participants in a collaborative dedicated to finding best practices in managing patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). AMGF, with AbbVie's support, is providing funds for quality improvement initiatives focusing on care management for patients with RA, a disease that affects about 1.3 million people, or about 0.6 percent of the U.S. adult population,1 Recipients are medical groups, IPAs, academic practices, and integrated delivery systems that responded to a request for proposals distributed in April 2014. The participating groups participated in a Kick-Off meeting held Nashville, TN at the Gaylord Opryland, August 13-14, 2014. The kick-off meeting provided an opportunity for groups to network with their peers and to officially present their team's project to the collaborative.

The Best Practices Learning Collaborative is designed for organizations that are striving to improve the care of patients with RA. Working together, participants will facilitate the discovery, adoption, and spread of care processes that will improve the way in which patients with rheumatoid arthritis experience the healthcare system. The RA collaborative is intended to leverage key learnings and facilitate a how-to approach.

The following medical groups received $10,000 educational grants to support their quality improvement efforts through participation in the Managing Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) Learning Collaborative:

Advocate Medical Group, Arlington Heights, IL
Colorado Springs Health Partners, Colorado Springs, CO
Cornerstone Health Care, High Point, NC
Geisinger Health System, Danville, PA
Group Health, Cincinnati, OH
HealthCare Partners, Torrance, CA
Kelsey-Seybold Clinic, Pearland, TX
Ochsner Health System, New Orleans, LA
The Polyclinic, Seattle, WA
Springfield Clinic, Springfield, IL
Summit Medical Group, Berkeley Heights, NJ
Sutter Medical Group, Novato, CA
University of Rochester, Rochester, NY
USMD Holdings, Inc., Irving, TX
Virginia Mason Medical Center, Seattle, WA
Wilmington Health, Wilmington, NC

In addition, two medical groups have been invited to participate in the collaborative on an unfunded basis:

Premier Medical Associates, Monroeville, PA
Watson Clinic, Lakeland, FL

The RA Learning Collaborative is supported by an Advisory Committee of physicians and quality improvement experts to help guide the development of the collaborative:

Jeffrey Carlin, MD, Virginia Mason Medical Center
Len Fromer, MD, FAAFP, UCLA School of Medicine, Group Practice Forum
Eric Newman, MD, FACP, Geisinger Health System
Robert J. Quinet, MD, FACP, Ochsner Health System
Rami Rihani, PharmD, Advocate Medical Group

"In today's healthcare environment, quality outcomes in specialty care, including rheumatology, will increasingly affect provider organizations' bottom line," said Donald W. Fisher, Ph.D., CAE, president and chief executive officer of the American Medical Group Association (AMGA) and secretary of the board of AMGF. "Participation in the AMGF Best Practices RA Collaborative will give participants mission-critical experience in engaging specialty departments such as rheumatology in performance measurement and improvement."

The program offers a shared learning environment where participants can exchange strategies and experiences as they work to improve the care provided to patients with RA. Through a yearlong series of activities, participating organizations will have the opportunity to test approaches and design care processes that are relevant to their clinical and operational models. As a result, Best Practices will be developed and shared around the work of the collaborative groups. The collaborative begins in August 2014 and end in August 2015.