Masspro has been an active leader in the effort to increase adult immunization in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, particularly in the areas of influenza and pneumococcal vaccinations, for over 15 years.
In 1995, Masspro partnered with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health’s (MA DPH) Immunization program to help cofound the Massachusetts Adult Immunization Coalition (MAIC), along with other state and local health agencies, with a primary aim of increasing adult immunization rates in the Commonwealth through education, networking and sharing of innovative approaches.
As the state’s Quality Improvement Organization (QIO), Masspro has furnished health care providers with the expertise, information and tools necessary to increase the awareness on the need for adult immunizations and has assisted hospitals, physician practices and long term care facilities in the adoption of procedures and policies that help improve and sustain immunization rates. Masspro has also worked similarly in facilitating improved rates among the state’s underserved populations. Specific contributions include:
- Community wide education, among health care providers and patients alike
- Spread of innovative best-practices and evidence-based health care quality improvement science
- One-on-one work with providers to adopt and sustain models of improvement
- Assisting providers to be more data-centric, including education and assistance in the collection, monitoring and analysis of immunization related data
In 2008, Masspro was selected by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to work with small to medium sized physician practices in Massachusetts to improve preventive care by increasing the rate of preventive screenings via the judicious use of the Electronic Health Record (EHR). From August 2008 to July 2011, Masspro worked with 128 practices to improve the rates of colorectal and breast cancer screenings, as well as rates of pneumococcal and influenza vaccinations in adults.
During this time Masspro assisted physicians with staff education, team building, patient population management, integration of evidence-based best-practices, patient self-management, and facilitation of the measurement, analysis and reporting of immunization data.
Practices that participated in the program saw an increase of Influenza immunizations – from 18% in 2008 to 32% by the end of the campaign in 2011. Pneumococcal immunizations saw a similar increase – from 19% in 2008 to 42% by 2011.
More recently, CMS selected Masspro to build upon its successes by continuing to work with primary care practices and inculcate effective use of EHRs for improvements in immunization screenings. Since 2011, Masspro has united the community in collaborative, ‘all-learn, all-teach’ learning and action events to promote awareness, offer performance improvement interventions and allow sharing of successful strategies between providers.