The Institute for Clinical Systems Improvement has created a professional partnerships group to help medical groups, hospitals, health plans, policymakers and others improve their healthcare offerings.
The nonprofit healthcare improvement organization's goal is to make healthcare more patient-centered, of higher quality and more affordable.
Nancy Jaeckels, ICSI's vice president of member relations and strategic initiatives, the new group offers services to help organizations develop new care delivery and payment models, implement decision-support tools, improve care coordination\ or integrate behavioral health into primary care or healthcare home models.
In addition, she said, ICSI Professional Partnerships will help organizations change their culture to implement current healthcare reform measures, establish organization-wide quality programs and train physician leaders. All services are customizable to the needs of the individual healthcare organization, she said.
"ICSI's mission has long been to improve the quality and lower the cost of the care that our member organizations deliver. Establishing ICSI Professional Partnerships enables ICSI members and non-members alike to benefit from our expertise, collaborative processes and applied approach to healthcare redesign," Jaeckels said.
ICSI serves 56 medical group and hospital members and is sponsored by six health plans in the Upper Midwest. For the past 17 years ICSI has collaborated with members in a "living laboratory" environment to take evidence-based concepts and create, pilot, implement and extend them to provider groups.
Jaeckels said the group's DIAMOND program, designed to change how care for the patient with depression is delivered and paid for in primary care, saved an estimated $28 million in healthcare costs in Minnesota in one year.
ICSI is sponsored by six Minnesota and Wisconsin health plans.