performance improvement type initiatives

Topic: Rheumatoid Arthritis 

Target Audience: Primary Care Providers (National audience) 

Curriculum: Multi-platform based curriculum focused on the benefits of an early diagnosis, appropriate referral to a specialist and long-term co-management strategies. 

Proposed Measure: To measure the referral trends amongst CME participants 4 months, pre/post intervention and compare them against a control group. 

Outcome: Of the 531 CME participants for whom we were able to match against the national-scope medical claims database, we were able to identify a relative 11.8% increase in the number of referrals they made 4 months post-intervention, compared to no increase/decrease observed in the control group. 

Topic: Rheumatoid Arthritis 

Target Audience: Primary Care Providers who diagnose and refer at the lowest frequency (under-performers) 

Claims Database Selection Criteria: Primary Care Provider, <7 Dx of RA over last 14 months, fewest # of shared patients (referral rates), high % of female patients ages 25-55 and/or male patients 50-55, none of whom have been diagnosed with RA. 

Output:  Identified 61,382 primary care providers who currently managed/treated 17,748,309 patients living at higher risk for RA. 

Outcome: 1,691 of our CME participants currently manage/treat 265,834 of the 17,748,309 patient pool identified in our baseline analysis, yielding 1,837 newly diagnosed RA patients 2.5+ years post-activity. 

Topic: Hypertension 

Target Audience: Primary Care Providers who treat hypertension patients 

Supplemental Audience Generation E-mail Campaign Selection Criteria: Identify the 10,000 primary care providers, who are in the best position to impact patient care based on specific prescription and patient profile criteria. 

Outcome: A small percentage of learners from our supplemental audience generation campaign completed the CME activity for certification, those clinicians managed/treated more than 96,661 patients who had already been diagnosed with hypertension and been prescribed a hypertensive agent. 

Objective: Determine how many OAB patients who had been previously diagnosed and been prescribed an appropriate medication are currently being treated by the participants of a CME initiative. 

Methodology: There were 2,324 participants for the live and enduring CME activities who stated they would commit to a positive practice change or that their practice patterns were already consistent with the curriculum. 2,002 (86% match rate) of whom we were able to match against the national scope medical claims database. Through an analysis of ICD-9 codes and prescription data, we were able to determine how many patients with OAB these 2,002 clinicians currently manage/treat to objectively determine the minimum number of patients who would potentially be impacted by these CME interventions. Of the 2,002 providers, 1,004 were currently managing/treating OAB patients and had written at least one prescription for an OAB medication in the last twelve months. 

Outcome: Based on an analysis of the medical claims database, we were able to identify 1,004 (out of 2,002) primary care providers who currently manage/treat 6,403 validated OAB patients or an average of 6.38 OAB patients/provider.