AAFP METRIC with PEF Quality Improvement Program Evaluation

This study was conducted from March 2008 through February 2010 and is funded by a grant from The Atlantic Philanthropies (NY, NY). This was an evaluation of the AAFP METRIC (Measuring, Evaluating and Translating Research into Care) and AAFP Practice Enhancement Forum (PEF) quality improvement programs that focused on the chronic care model. The goal of this evaluation was to determine whether practices that have participated in PEF and/or one or more METRIC modules have changed practice systems or processes and if changes have affected patient care process measures or intermediate clinical outcomes.

The specific aims of the project were to determine:

1. The extent to which the practice interventions selected as part of the METRIC quality improvement program were successfully improved or implemented.
2. Whether there are statistically significant changes in patient process outcomes as a before after measurement regarding management of chronic conditions (asthma, CAD, diabetes) as a result of physician/practice participation in METRIC and PEF.
3. Whether PEF results in statistically significantly better patient process outcomes compared to METRIC alone.
4. Whether PEF and METRIC results in statistically significant improvement in patient process outcomes compared to a group of control physicians.

Presentations

“Preliminary Qualitative Results: Evaluation of AAFP METRIC & PEF Quality Improvement Programs”. James M. Galliher, Angela M. Lanigan, Brian K. Manning, Mindy S. Spano. In-house presentation at AAFP, Leawood, KS. Dec 10 2009