February 6, 2008

The American Board of Medical Specialties recently awarded the Michigan Primary Care Consortium (MPCC) a one-year $150,000 Improving Performance in Practice (IPIP) grant, which will educate and assist primary care physicians in implementing improved processes for higher quality and more cost-efficient patient care.

IPIP is a national initiative supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation with additional funding gained from participating states. In 2006, the Johnson Foundation awarded $403 million through 928 grants to programs and projects designed to improve health care in the United States.

"Each of us will benefit when primary care is able to provide the patient-centered medical home that we need," said Janet Olszewski, Director of the Michigan Department of Community Health (MDCH) and head of the consortium. "Michigan intends to make that happen through the efforts of the consortium and this new grant."

Dr. Joseph Fortuna, M.D., serves as chair of the consortium's Practice Transformation Committee and as a Divisional Corporate Medical Director for Delphi Corp. In addition, he is chair of the Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG) Health Focus Group whose mission has been to build key alliances between the health care and automotive industries. By acting as fiduciary for the IPIP grant and sharing in hands-on participation, AIAG extends its role as a world leader for developing standards, guidelines and training programs in quality management and process improvement to the health care arena.

"The automotive industry has developed such effective quality improvement processes over the past three decades that it now produces automobiles with lifetime guarantees," Dr. Fortuna said. "The same innovations and engineering best practices can be used to create continuous quality improvements in health care to combat the inefficiencies and rising costs, which are of great concern for Michigan's auto industry and its entire population."

The MPCC was founded in 2005 as a collaborative partnership of organizations representing primary care, public health, professional groups, manufacturers, payers, academic institutions and others. Leaders from family practice, internal medicine, pediatrics, osteopathic medicine, medical management and quality improvement initiatives - such as AIAG - will participate in IPIP's planning and implementation throughout Michigan. The IPIP project will work with roughly 30 primary care practices in 2008 and plans ultimately to reach all primary care practices in the state. Participating practices will receive tools, assistance with implementing registries and improved care processes, and quality improvement coaching from systems engineers donated by Chrysler, Ford and General Motors. The automakers will provide quality engineering services to help redesign office practices to improve flow, reduce duplication, and improve technology usage - all to help lower costs and provide higher quality patient care.

About AIAG

Founded in 1982, AIAG is a globally recognized organization where OEMs and suppliers unite to address and resolve issues affecting the worldwide automotive supply chain. AIAG's goals are to reduce cost and complexity through collaboration; improve product quality, health, safety and the environment; and optimize speed to market throughout the supply chain. Headquartered in the metro Detroit area, its member companies include North American, European and Asia-Pacific OEMs and suppliers to the automotive industry. For more information, please visit the organization's Web site at www.aiag.org.