Southeast Texas Medical Associates, LLP James L. Holly, M.D. Southeast Texas Medical Associates, LLP


Letters - Letter to Dr. David Blumenthal, Commonwealth Fund, about the National Vital Signs paper from IOM
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April 29, 2015

Dr. Blumenthal, you will not remember but we met when you were at the ONC.  We discussed the potential for Meaningful Use becoming an obstacle to EMR adoption.  It appears that that has not happened.  My practice, Southeast Texas Medical Associates, LLP has kept pace with all of CMS and ONC’s requirements and we have used EMR and electronic patient management since 1998.  In 1999, SETMA experience four transformative seminal events which are described along with others descriptions of SETMA in the following link:  http://jameslhollymd.com/in-the-news/vital-signs-examiner-publication.

Last week, CMS and ONC hosted an invited meeting in Washington described as “CMS and ONC Co-hosting a Meeting on ‘Health IT to Support ACO and Group Reporting’”.  The following is a link to my response to and summary of that meeting:  http://jameslhollymd.com/Letters/cms-oinc-health-it-to-support-aco-and-group-reporting.  It is divided into three parts:  The Past, The Present and The Future. 

As I read Measuring Vital Signs   An IOM Report on Core Metrics for Health and Health Care I wanted to share with you my practice’s experience with quality measurement.  It is improbable that you will have the time to review any of this material but I will have made it available for your consideration. It includes the following:

  1. http://jameslhollymd.com/Presentations/The-Importance-of-Data-Analytics-in-Physician-Practice -- presented at Massachusetts medical Society this presentation addresses knowledge, information, learning and the place of analytics in physician practice.
  2. http://jameslhollymd.com/letters/Robert-Wood-Johnson-Foundation-PCT-LEAP -- prepared in response to RWJF LEAP study conducted by MacColl Institute, this reviews SETMA’s quality measures and our philosophy of quality metrics.
  3. http://jameslhollymd.com/the-setma-way/setma-model-of-care-pc-mh-healthcare-innovation-the-future-of-healthcare -- this discusses SETMA’s Model of Care which five steps:  tracking quality metrics one patient at a time; auditing quality performance by populations and/or panels of patients; analyzing performance statistically for opportunities for improvement; public reporting by provider name over the past seven years and designing quality improvement programs based on the foregoing. 
  4. http://jameslhollymd.com/public-reporting/ and http://jameslhollymd.com/public-reporting/public-reports-by-type -- our philosophy and experience with public reporting by provider name on several hundred quality metrics.
  5. http://jameslhollymd.com/epm-tools/Automated-Team-Tutorial-for-the-EMR-Automated-Team-Function -- the automated team function which we think may be a significant part of the future of healthcare transformation.

I look forward to following the development of the “national” Vital Signs work.  In our provider meeting in May, we will review the fifteen core measures you have identified and we will discuss their potential use at the practice level.  For information about SETMA, we have earned the following.

SETMA’s Recognitions and Accreditations

  • NCQA -
  • PC-MH Tier III2010-2016
  • NCQA -
  • Diabetes Recognition2010-2016
  • NCQA -
  • Heart And Stroke Recognition2010-2016
  • NCQA -
  • Distinction in Patient Experience Reporting2014-2015
  • AAAHC --
  • PC-MH2010-2017
  • AAAHC --
  • Ambulatory Care2010-2017
  • URAC --
  • PC-MH Advance Certification with EMR2014-2017
  • The Joint Commission -
  • PC-MH2014-2017
  • The Joint Commission -
  • Ambulatory Care2014-2017
  • The Joint Commission -
  • Clinical Laboratory Services2014-2016
  • Texas Medical Foundation, CMS’ Texas QIO -
  • The Texas Practice Quality Improvement Award2012-2014

    I hope you find this interesting and useful.  We don’t have all of the answers obviously, but we are asking good questions and looking for answers and solutions.

    James (Larry) Holly, M.D.
    C.E.O. SETMA
    www.jameslhollymd.com

    Adjunct Professor
    Family & Community Medicine
    University of Texas Health Science Center
    San Antonio School of Medicine 

    Clinical Associate Professor
    Department of Internal Medicine
    School of Medicine
    Texas A&M Health Science Center