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| Quality Counts Awarded Major Grant to Improve Health Care Integration - Nov 2009 | | Print | |
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The Maine Health Access Foundation (MeHAF) has awarded Quality Counts a $230,000 grant to study how the integration of primary health care and behavioral health care services meets the needs of Maine patients statewide. National data indicate that better coordinated care leads to more informed providers and patients, is less costly, more efficient, and leads to a higher quality of care. To date, however, it has been difficult to measure how well physician practices have been able to deliver this coordinated care. Under this grant, Quality Counts will work with consumers, physical and behavioral health care providers, health plans, and employers to build a system for collecting and reporting on the effectiveness of behavioral-physical health integration, including patient satisfaction and outcomes, and return on investment. “We all know that you can’t improve what you can’t measure. Quality Counts and our partners understand that by measuring how well providers link primary and behavioral health care needs, we can determine how well an integrated model of care is meeting patient needs, and can provide information back to providers who can use it to better meet patient needs,” said Dr. Lisa Letourneau, Executive Director for Quality Counts. Under this grant, Quality Counts will work with partners to identify a set of Behavioral Health Integration Metrics to help improve care, guide public policy decisions and payment reforms, and help consumers make more informed choices about healthcare settings and providers. “People receive health care from physicians, nurses, therapists, oral health providers and many other providers.
Studies demonstrate that an integrated approach to treating a patient leads to better overall health, but MeHAF feels it is critical to develop a set of standards and data to measure the effectiveness of the approach.” said Wendy J. Wolf, MD MPH, President and CEO of MEHAF. “Health care today is far too costly to make assumptions, and by developing a set of agreed-upon metrics we can all pinpoint areas for improvement where it is needed.” The grant to Quality Counts is one of two statewide grants awarded in the current round of MeHAF funding. The second was awarded to the Maine Department of Health and Human Services and the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, which will team up with local public and mental health programs throughout the state to promote public messages about ways to improve mental health. . |