Date
September 9, 2009
On September 10, 2009, NYHealth hosted “A Conversation with Dr. Edward Wagner,” Director of the MacColl Institute for Healthcare Innovation at the Center for Health Studies’ Group Health Cooperative and creator of the widely used Chronic Care Model. Health care providers, community leaders, and several of the NYHealth Diabetes Campaign partners attended the event.
Dr. Wagner led a dynamic discussion on how to spread proven approaches to care for chronic illnesses, and make them standard practice for people suffering from chronic conditions. Dr. Wagner emphasized the need to advance financial incentives and solid data systems to inform and support providers aiming to improve the care for people with chronic conditions. Referring to the Chronic Care Model as “Planned Care,” Dr. Wagner assured the audience that transforming our current health care system into one that keeps its patients healthy is possible through planning and sustained leadership in implementing proven strategies to improve quality. After all, “Quality improvement is not a project,” said Dr. Wagner, “it is an approach to how you do your work, and it is either continuous or not at all.”
The work of improving care for people with chronic conditions—like diabetes—is critical, especially within the primary care system. “We need to reestablish primary care as the foundation of American health care,” said Wagner. “Good primary care can make a large contribution to cost reduction by keeping people out of the emergency room.”
Improving the lives of people with diabetes, which affects 1.8 million New Yorkers, is a key priority for NYHealth. Spreading best practices in the management of diabetes within the State’s primary care system is one of the central strategies of the Foundation’s Diabetes Campaign, which is aimed at reversing the epidemic.
Watch the videos below to view highlights from the event.
Overview of NYHealth Diabetes Strategy
The Evolution of Our Understanding of Chronic Diseases
Important Elements of the Chronic Care Model
Lessons Learned About Implementing Learning Collaboratives
A Statewide Approach: Taking the Chronic Care Model to Scale
Edward H. Wagner, MD, MPH, FACP, is a general internist/epidemiologist and Director of the MacColl Institute for Healthcare Innovation at the Center for Health Studies (CHS) Group Health Cooperative. His research and quality improvement work focus on improving the care of seniors and others with chronic illness. Since 1998, he has directed “Improving Chronic Illness Care,” a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Dr. Wagner and his MacColl Institute colleagues developed the Chronic Care Model (CCM). The CCM now serves as the foundation for improving ambulatory care for many organizations nationally and internationally. Dr. Wagner has written two books and more than 250 publications. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. Dr. Wagner was the recipient of the 2007 NCQA Health Quality Award and the 2007 Picker Institute Award for Excellence in Patient-centered Care.