ICSI creates Professional Partnerships group to help medical groups transform their health care

Jan 8 2010

ICSI Professional Partnerships Designed to Help Clients Improve the Quality and Lower the Cost of Their Health Care

The Institute for Clinical Systems Improvement (ICSI, www.icsi.org), a nonprofit health care improvement organization, has created a Professional Partnerships group to help medical groups, hospitals, health plans, policy makers and others transform their health care so it is more patient-centered, of higher quality and more affordable.

"ICSI's mission has long been to improve the quality and lower the cost of the care that our member organizations deliver," said Nancy Jaeckels, Vice President, Member Relations and Strategic Initiatives. "Establishing ICSI Professional Partnerships enables ICSI members and non-members alike to benefit from our expertise, collaborative processes, and applied approach to health care redesign."

ICSI currently serves 56 medical group and hospital members and is sponsored by six health plans in the Upper Midwest. ICSI is known for its leadership in the development of evidence-based health care guidelines and its organizational culture work, and for convening diverse stakeholders to find solutions to health care problems that no single group alone can solve.

For the past 17 years ICSI has collaborated with its members in a "living laboratory" environment to take evidence-based concepts and create, pilot, implement and extend them successfully among provider groups.

Examples include DIAMOND, a program that changes how care for the patient with depression is delivered and paid for in primary care, and a major initiative that provides physicians with decision-support criteria to enable more appropriate, efficient and patient-centric ordering of high-technology diagnostic imaging (HTDI) exams. This latter initiative saved an estimated $28 million in health care costs in Minnesota in one year.

ICSI Professional Partnerships offers services based on these types of innovative work to help organizations develop new care delivery and payment models, implement decision-support tools, improve care coordination, or integrate behavioral health into primary care or health care home models.

In addition, ICSI Professional Partnerships has expertise in helping organizations change their culture in order to implement current health care reform measures, establishing organization-wide quality programs, and training physician leaders. All services are customizable to the needs of the individual health care organization.