Lumetra Insights
August 2009
In 2007 the Commonwealth Fund issued a report entitled “Aiming Higher: Results from a State Scorecard on Health System Performance.” In that report, California ranked last among all states for patients receiving the right care, e.g. consistent use of best practices in the prevention and/or treatment of chronic diseases.
As a result of this report, the Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC) jointly launched the Right Care Initiative (RCI) with the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) at the first annual clinical quality improvement Leadership Summit in March 2008. The Summit was held on the UCLA campus and sponsored by the Deans of UCLA and UC Berkeley Schools of Public Health. It was geared to obtain participation from California’s leading health plans and medical group medical directors, as well as from healthcare industry leaders in evidence-based medicine.
Through periodic meetings, research, and collaborative action, the goal of the Right Care Initiative is to reach the 90th percentile in heart and diabetes HEDIS control measures of blood pressure, lipids, and glucose, and to cut the rate of death from hospital acquired infections, by 2011.
One of Lumetra’s medical consultants, Joseph Scherger, MD, MPH, leads the Diabetes & Heart Disease Work Group. The pharmaceutical company, Novartis, recently funded Lumetra’s participation in support of the RCI through the end of May 2010. The work group’s responsibility is to improve patient-level outcomes (as noted above) through community-based demonstration projects, utilizing multi-dimensional education activities in partnership with health plans, medical group leadership, and their affiliated physician networks.
For more information about Lumetra’s work with the Right Care Initiative, you can e-mail Cathy Coleman at ccoleman@lumetrasolutions.com.