Pursuing Perfection Grant Awarded to Whatcom Health Care Community
St. Joseph Hospital, PeaceHealth
Awarded $1.9 million grant from the Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation
St. Joseph Hospital located in Bellingham,
Wash., is one of seven health care organizations nationwide that has been chosen to receive funding from the Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation for the purpose of Pursuing Perfection in Health Care.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
was established as a national philanthropy in 1972 and today it is the largest
U.S. foundation devoted exclusively
to improving the health and health care of all Americans.
Provider groups in the pilot are Family Care Network, Sea Mar Community Health Center, North Cascade Cardiology, and St. Joseph Hospital with the Center for Senior Health. Payers in the pilot are Group Health Cooperative and Regence Blue Shield. Together they will be developing and piloting the changes within the next two years. They will be working with adults with diabetes and/or congestive heart failure to improve access to care, improve communication across health care organizations and support patients in being full members of the care team. The intent of the project is to reduce the need for admissions and re-admissions to the hospital through innovative chronic care services focused on strengthening patients' ability to manage their own care, and to create a more effective health care system. Additionally, improving the safety of the medication-management process between providers and patients will be a targeted area of emphasis. These pilots will be an opportunity to closely evaluate the economic costs and benefits of a community-based continuum of care model.
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A Patient's Perspective on Pursuing Perfection As a patient I worry, “What if a doc doesn’t know my current medications and dosages? What if they don’t have a correct and complete list of my allergies? The last time I was in the hospital, I had six medication errors in three days—how can this be avoided or minimized? The current process supports the system within each provider location—it doesn’t support the patient. |
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