OAKLAND, CA – The Integrated Healthcare Association (IHA) named California's top performing physician organizations on Thursday, based on its statewide pay for performance program measures.

Out of more than 200 physician organizations, the 44 top performers achieved the highest overall quality in 2010 based on the IHA’s P4P program measures. In addition to celebrating the top performers, IHA presented awards to the physician organizations that demonstrated the most quality improvement from 2009 to 2010. The awards were presented at the IHA Pay for Performance Stakeholders Meeting in Los Angeles.

Both top performer and most improved awards are based on performance in four P4P quality measurement domains: Clinical Quality, Patient Experience, Information Technology-Enabled Systemness, and Coordinated Diabetes Care. As the IHA program transitions to Value Based P4P, future awards may be based on both quality of care and cost.

The three physician organizations that achieved both top performing and most improved recognition for 2010 are:

• Palo Alto Medical Foundation – Mills-Peninsula Division/Mills-Peninsula Medical Group
• Solano Regional Medical Group
• Southern California Permanente Medical Group – Kern County

Sharon Katz, RN, vice president management and quality, Palo Alto Medical Foundation, Mills-Peninsula Division, noted that a number of factors were responsible for their improvement during 2010.

"We achieved a successful and seamless transition among our primary care physicians to an electronic health record," she said. "We also made great progress in successfully implementing our physician communication program, focusing on the patient-physician relationship. And finally, we focused on developing annual quality improvement work plans that, among other things, helped us achieve better performance in a majority of targeted preventative and acute care measures."

Solano Regional Medical Group (now Sutter Medical Group), which is part of the Sutter Medical Network, began taking steps to deliver care that is both high-quality and affordable several years ago, including clinical and operational leader collaboration to identify and implement best practices, comprehensive education and recognition programs.

"Every employee brings a unique perspective to improving healthcare for patients and plays a vital role in creating a highly coordinated, integrated system of care," said Fred Blair, MD, division director of quality, utilization management and network management for Sutter Medical Group in Solano County. "We're a team. By supporting and motivating each other – and even sometimes making each other laugh – we continue to advance clinical quality and enhance our patients' experiences."

The third dual award winner is the Southern California Permanente Medical Group (SCPMG) – Kern County Medical Center, whose performance is attributed in part to a clinical support structure that is focused on delivering timely and proactive patient-centered "Complete Care." This team-based model to improve preventive care and chronic conditions management includes the primary care physician, an RN care coordinator, a medical assistant or licensed vocational nurse, a pharmacist and a social medicine therapist.

"Our next step is to drive out performance variability so that we get consistent high quality care and service for all of our patients, and each patient receives the right care at the right time, every time, regardless of which physician or support team the patient sees," said Julia Bae, MD, SCPMG Kern County medical director.

Click on the next page to find out this years' top performers and most improved winners.