"Guided Care" Wins Award for Innovation at the Conference on Practice Improvement

Guided Care, a new model of health care for people with multiple chronic conditions, improves patients’ quality of life and care, while improving the efficiency of treating the sickest and most complex patients. Guided Care uses patient-centered teams that include a registered nurse, two to five physicians, and other members of the office staff who work closely together for the benefit of each patient. The team monitors each patient’s health and offers comprehensive, coordinated, patient-centered health care.

Early results suggest that Guided Care improves the quality of care and reduces costs for older adults suffering from multiple chronic health conditions. A recently published study in the American Journal of Managed Care showed that in the first 8 months of a randomized controlled trial, Guided Care patients spent less time in hospitals and skilled nursing facilities and had fewer emergency room visits and home health episodes, resulting in an annual net savings of $75,000 per Guided Care nurse. Other analyses have shown that Guided Care improves the quality of patients’ care, reduces family caregiver strain, and improves physicians’ satisfaction with chronic care.

“Guided Care has increased the efficiency of our team and of patients’ office visits, as well as improved our access to evidence-based guidelines for managing chronic conditions,” said Gary Noronha, MD, FACP, Medical Director of Wyman Park Internal Medicine, part of Johns Hopkins Community Physicians. “Our physicians agree that we now have the right mix of professionals to meet the needs of these vulnerable patients.”

Guided Care recently received the Award for Innovation in Practice Improvement at the 2009 Conference on Practice Improvement in Kansas City. The annual award recognizes innovative practice improvement programs and strategies that transform medical office processes, promote patient participation, and contribute to an office practice’s overall success. “I was honored to accept the award on behalf of the many researchers, doctors, nurses, patients, and family caregivers who have made Guided Care an option for helping the 133 million Americans with chronic conditions to lead healthier lives,” said Chad Boult, MD, MPH, MBA, principal investigator of the Guided Care study and director of the Roger C. Lipitz Center for Integrated Health Care at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. STFM President-Elect Perry Dickinson, MD, (left) presented the award to Dr Boult (right). The award was sponsored by STFM, along with the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), and Medical Economics magazine.

For more information about the Guided Care program, please go to: www.GuidedCare.org.

For information on the Conference on Practice Improvement, visit www.stfm.org/pic.