CAPP Physician Group: HENRY FORD MEDICAL GROUP
Project: Auto Manufacturer Care Innovation Collaborative: Heart Failure Program

Summary: Leveraging its extensive electronic medical record, Henry Ford was able to target heart-failure patients with a health-coaching intervention. The program was developed to slow disease progression, improve functional status, improve quality of life, and reduce hospitalizations and ER visits among this patient population. The model not only resulted in significant clinical improvements, but a cost savings of $3,600 per member per year.

The enrolled patients of Henry Ford’s Heart Failure Program had Stage C heart failure; they had been hospitalized for heart failure, diastolic dysfunction, and EF <40% systolic. The patients were members of the Health Alliance Plan.

The program was launched in 2004 and was part of the Care Innovation Collaborative. All three Detroit automakers identified heat failure as a high cost chronic disease.

The objectives of the program were to:

• Optimize medical therapy and drug titration targets, achieving 100% use of Ace Inhibitors, Beta blockers, and aldactone unless contraindicated
• Achieve risk-factor reduction in low-density lipoprotein (LDL) and blood pressure
• Focus on Patient Education and close monitoring
• Utilizing Henry Ford’s telemedicine programs to monitor patients in the home.

The clinical results are shown in the chart below:

In addition to significant clinical improvements, the program yielded a cost savings of $3,600 per member per year. The savings was calculated by compared to a enrolled group.

Today, the program is open to all payors and is now incorporated in primary care clinics.

For more information about this project, please contact Dr. Bruce Muma, Henry Ford Medical Group at (586) 247-2670.

Integrating Services for Low-Income Seniors Shows Health Care Benefit, by Claire Sowerbutt, Contributing Writer, MedPage Today, December 11, 2007.

INDIANAPOLIS, Dec. 11 -- For low-income seniors, the likelihood of providing the recommended standard of health care services could be enhanced by integrating home-based and institutional services, found researchers here.

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“From High Tech to Soft Touch: The Everett Clinic uses innovative ways to control health care costs,” by Bryan Corliss, Washington CEO, November 26, 2007.

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“CAPP’s 35 MSMGs [multispecialty medical groups] share a common vision as learning organizations dedicated to the improvement of clinical care. Their features include physician leadership and governance; commitment to evidence-based care management processes; well-developed quality improvement systems; team-based care; the use of advance clinical information technology; and the collection, analysis, and distribution of clinical performance information. These features are congruent with the [Institute of Medicine’s] recommendations on key elements needed to redesign delivery systems.”

From Chapter 5, “Developing the Test Bed—Linking Integrated Service Delivery Systems: Council of Accountable Physician Practices,” by Michael A. Mustile, MD. The Learning Healthcare System: Workshop Summary (IOM Roundtable on Evidence-Based Medicine), edited by LeighAnne Olsen, Dara Aisner, and J. Michael McGinnis, National Academies Press, 2007.

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“A shift from the current care model to a more coordinated care model centered on primary care is one potential way to help stave off the healthcare dilemma.”

“It's too expensive to be a primary-care doctor,” by Debra A. Geihsler, president and CEO of Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates & Atrius Health. Boston Globe, July 25, 2007.

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