Opening Plenary – Texas Medical Group Management Association

in Health Care

On April 7th, Dave Williams had the pleasure of opening the annual meeting of the Texas Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) in San Antonio, Texas with a plenary talk on the Science for Improvement (see link below). More than 200 members came together for a mutli-day conference with a focus on accelerating performance. The Texas MGMA is a professional association representing medical practice administrators across Texas with over 400 members.

Dave spoke to the attendees about how they can apply the science of improvement to enhance quality, reduce costs, and improve patient safety. The talk was rooted in the work he is doing as an improvement advisor with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement.

For many, quality improvement and patient safety is mainly viewed as an in-hospital pursuit, but risks of harm and improvement opportunities exist in out-patient settings as well. For example, a project in Massachusetts funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality (AHRQ) called PROMISES (Proactive Reduction in Outpatient Malpractice: Improving Safety Efficiency and Satisfaction) is a three year, state-wide malpractice and patient safety initiative in the primary care setting. In addition, the Coalition of Advanced Emergency Medical Systems (CAEMS) has partnered with Positive Eye Consulting on a improvement and patient safety collaborative in the ambulance sector.

Interested in the talk, download a PDF of the slides here.