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December 2024
December 2024

Quality Corner: Announcing LHP’s Quality Award Winners

LHP is pleased to congratulate LMG Woodburn Health Center as the winner of the 2024 LHP Quality Awards and $2,000 prize for putting on HbA1c clinics for their patients with diabetes!

Congratulations to these team members and your entire clinic staff for your accomplishments: Kelle Miyama, Cheli Garcia, Crystal Velasco, Heather Kelly Juno Vallejo-Leyva, Marisol Torres, and Sandy Villarreal.

We are also proud to recognize:
  • Oregon Pediatrics (2nd place and $1,500) for improving preventive visit rates.
  • Goodskin Dermatology (3rd place and $1,000) for improving patient scheduling and access to appointments.
  • Merritt Health and Wellness for expanding access to care for homeless patients.
  • AIM Health for focusing on patient continuity with their primary care provider.
Quality improvement requires significant effort, coordination, and dedication across care teams. To show our appreciation, Dr. Chaffin and our teams will be delivering awards and special treats to staff who submitted projects and learning more about their process and results.

Please join us in celebrating all the people who made these projects possible. You can review a summary of this year’s quality projects below. Several projects addressed access to care, which has been a shared challenge in our region. LHP is committed to sharing learnings across the network and these examples could help your clinic get started in implementing something similar!

LMG Woodburn Health Center:

Project: Improve quality of care for patients with diabetes by ensuring up-to-date A1c testing.

Actions: Medical Assistants ran A1c clinics during periods of low physician availability (e.g., summer schedules), and increased referrals to clinical pharmacists.

Results: Decreased the uncontrolled A1c measure from 25% to 23%, increased the percentage of patients with A1c tests every six months from 88% to 90%, and improved staff productivity and patient care.

Oregon Pediatrics:

Project: Improve preventive visit rates and overall care for patients.

Actions: Developed a workflow to schedule preventive visits, utilized notification tools like texting, and encouraged scheduling during convenient times for families.

Results: Completed 11% more preventive visits compared to the previous year, improved preventive metrics for all ages, and reduced unplanned visits.

Goodskin Dermatology:

Project: Achieve greater than 95% appointment utilization by reducing no-shows and cancellations.

Actions: Implemented self-scheduling for patients, allowing them to schedule, reschedule, and cancel appointments online.

Results: Reduced no-show rate by 12%, achieved a 97% appointment utilization rate, and improved provider efficiency and patient satisfaction.

Merritt Health:

Project: Address gaps in access to care for homeless populations in Portland, particularly those with chronic conditions.

Actions: Expanded clinic hours, introduced telehealth visits, and provided on-site services at homeless shelters. Improved coordination between medical and behavioral health providers.

Results: Increased patient satisfaction, improved chronic condition management, reduced hospitalizations, and achieved a 15% improvement in disease control.

AIM Health:

Project: Improve patient continuity with their primary care physician (PCP).

Actions: Expanded clinic hours, improved scheduling to ensure patients see their chosen PCP, and enhanced patient-physician relationships.

Results: Increased the percentage of visits with the chosen PCP from 79.46% to 83.68% over six months, reduced after-hours urgent care visits, and improved patient and physician satisfaction.