Awards for quality have been presented to health care professionals with Orange City Area Health System’s medical clinics in Orange City, Hospers, and Paullina, Iowa, for their successful participation in the 2009 Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield Primary Care Program.
This Wellmark-sponsored performance improvement program is designed to support primary care clinicians in their effort to improve the quality and efficiency of the health care provided to their patients, and is part of Wellmark’s Collaboration on Quality® initiative.
The program uses data gathered through Wellmark’s health care claims and clinician-provided medical records to measure health care delivered to patients. Clinicians who met or exceeded certain measures for care for diabetes, hypertension, asthma, and childhood immunizations for the Wellmark members were honored. Information on care delivered to patients was collected and compared to performance measures of clinical care based on national standards of care. In addition, the clinicians’ rate of generic drug prescribing and the use of electronic medical records or e-prescribing tools were also measured.
“We are very proud of the quality of medicine practiced throughout Orange City Area Health System,” reports Marty Guthmiller, CEO of the health system. “It is gratifying that organizations like Wellmark acknowledge our high level of quality.”
Orange City Area Health System family practice clinicians in the Orange City Medical Clinic, Hospers Medical Clinic, and Mill Creek Family Practice, Paullina, are now participating in Wellmark’s 2010 Primary Care Program, which continues to focus on care of diabetes, hypertension, asthma, and childhood immunizations.
Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. Orange City Area Health System is a comprehensive health system with a hospital, three family practice clinics, home health and hospice, physical therapy, surgical services, two nursing homes, and a retirement community. More information at ocHealthSystem.org.