Quality: Going the Extra Mile
By Mitesh Popat, MD, MPH – Chief Executive Officer
“Quality.” It’s a word that means different things to different people. To patients, it can mean easy appointment-making, helpful staff, modern facilities, timely calls back from providers, and positive health outcomes.
To providers at Marin Community Clinic, it means all of these things – and more. Are patients getting the right care at the right time? Are issues being identified early on? Do we have an expert team in place? Is our structure set up for success? Are we continually striving to improve? Are we focused on the health of the community at large?
At Marin Community Clinic, providing quality care is ingrained inour culture – from our clinicians to the front office team and the Referral Department that arranges specialty care – everyone. It’s about working as a team to ensure that patients not only have a good experience, but stay healthy.
Hard-wiring quality
Having a defined structure that “hard wires” quality is essential. Here’s what we have in place:
- ✓ Medical Directors at each of our five medical clinics, and Chief and Associate Dental Officers, all of whom take a hands-on approach to overseeing quality
- ✓ Clinical Quality Leads Pediatrics and Ob/Gyn and Dental Services, and directors overseeing Behavioral Health, Nutrition, and Health Education
- ✓ Comparison of our patient outcomes to national and regional standards, taking action where we find opportunities for improvement
- ✓ Participation in outside surveys that give us an objective view of our performance
- ✓ Active participation in regional efforts to improve health outcomes patients who are high risk for conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, heart disease and stroke
- ✓ Quality Department devoted to tracking and improvement, including patient feedback
- ✓ Peer review sessions, where our clinicians learn from each others’ cases
- ✓ Monthly provider education sessions to discuss new developments in the field of medicine
- ✓ Board of Directors Quality Committee; Medical and Dental Advisory Committees comprised of community members with expertise in their fields
Are we perfect? No, but we are getting better and better.
Everyone is involved, and it’s a continual focus. Ultimately, it comes down to people – the staff’s commitment to our mission and why they came to work here, getting the right team and processes in place, and our leadership team.