Advanced team-based care: How we made it work
Our move away from a traditional practice model has improved quality metrics and enhanced our financial sustainability.
PRACTICE RECOMMENDATIONS
› Up-train staff to provide enhanced support for physicians during the office visit, such as handling most electronic health record work, including documentation. C
› Take a team approach to between-visit work, leveraging principles of team-based care (such as co-location) to optimize efficiency. C
Strength of recommendation (SOR)
A Good-quality patient-oriented evidence
B Inconsistent or limited-quality patient-oriented evidence
C Consensus, usual practice, opinion, disease-oriented evidence, case series
In the aTBC model, the percentage of patients receiving age-appropriate screening is higher than before in every domain we measure (FIGURE 1). There has also been improvement in major quality metrics (FIGURE 2).
In a survey done in Spring 2018 by St. Norbert College Strategic Research Center, provider satisfaction increased, with 83% of physicians having made the transition to an aTBC practice moderately or very satisfied with their Bellin Health experience, compared with 70% in the traditional model. More recent 2019 survey data show a satisfaction rate of 90% for team-based care providers. Finally, in our aTBC model—in CMS’s Next-Gen ACO initiative—the cost per patient per month is significantly less than for those in a non-team-based care model ($796 vs $940).
CORRESPONDENCE
James Jerzak, MD, 1630 Commanche Ave, Green Bay, WI 54313; james.jerzak@bellin.org.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to thank Lindsey E. Carlasare, MBA, from the American Medical Association, and Brad Wozney, MD, Kathy Kerscher, and Christopher Elfner from Bellin Health, for their contributions to the content and review of this manuscript.
