Fresno Area Quality Care Initiative
"Small deeds done are better than great deeds planned." ~ Peter Marshall
It has been said that “It’s not what you know; it’s what you do with what you know” that’s important. To that end, several California Health Care Coalition (CHCC) Members located in the San Joaquin Valley in central California are working together on healthcare issues that impact local large consumers of healthcare. Representatives of the City of Fresno, County of Fresno, California Value Trust, Fresno Unified School District and other local stakeholders – which call themselves the Fresno Area Quality Care Initiative or “FAQCI” – began working together in 2009, with the support of CHCC, on common healthcare problems faced by all.
When the group began meeting, there was an interest in addressing the measurement of the quality of care delivered by local hospitals and doctors and in helping lower the cost of healthcare for each Member. In May of 2008, one of Fresno’s major hospitals, which was perceived as delivering the highest quality of care, was investigated by the Centers for Disease Control for post-operation infections in a number of cardiac patients.* The hospital was prohibited from performing heart surgeries for a period of time while the issue was investigated. Of the 12 patients who had acquired life-threatening infections, three of them died. Obviously, this issue was of great concern when FAQCI began meeting in 2009.
As a result, FAQCI learned more about organizations like the California Hospital Assessment and Reporting Taskforce (CHART), which was established in 2004 to develop a statewide hospital performance reporting system. As of 2009, few local hospitals participated in CHART. Fresno area purchasers were concerned about this and expressed a desire to meet with local hospitals to discuss the issues. Early attempts to meet with local hospitals were not reciprocated, and when CHCC sponsored a “Health Care Forum” that same year which brought together local stakeholders to discuss related issues, the local hospitals did not participate. When interested parties asked why the hospitals did not participate, the hospitals implied that the effort appeared to be “confrontational” and driven by individuals who were not local.
In 2010, FAQCI members met again and committed to driving the effort locally and to taking a different approach. Former U.S. Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill coined the phrase “All politics is local.” In that context, it was agreed that these efforts also needed to be driven locally. Such an approach would address the area hospitals’ concerns, but still required CHCC support. It was at that time the group named the effort “FAQCI” and determined that the broad goal was “to improve the CommonHealth of the Fresno community.” FAQCI began by taking a more collaborative approach with local doctors and hospitals and began a dialogue. The group realized that the first step was achieving meetings with local hospitals and restoring credibility to its effort.
Since FAQCI began, productive meetings have been held with local hospitals and other stakeholders have stepped forward with an interest in joining the effort. Preliminary meetings focused on listening and learning to better understand the issues faced by local hospitals.
In an effort to address serious community health issues, FAQCI began focusing in 2011 on how to bring community leaders together to leverage the collective resources to support individual change. Recent statistics show that Fresno and the Central Valley area lead the nation is skyrocketing rates for obesity and diabetes. In most cases, obesity and its co-morbidity diabetes can be avoided by helping individuals make better, healthier choices. Unfortunately, individuals have an extremely difficult time making the right choices when they are surrounded by a culture, an economy and an environment that are not conducive to good health.
To focus the community’s attention and resources on these two growing epidemics, FAQCI convened a “Leadership Summit” on October 25, 2011 in Clovis, California, that was attended by a diverse group of leaders from medical clinics, hospitals, nurses, purchasing organizations, business associations, health plans and wellness groups. That day of brainstorming led to follow-up meetings in November to begin identifying and “mapping” the community assets that can be focused on eliminating obesity and diabetes throughout the community. In addition, in November, FAQCI decided to begin tackling obesity and diabetes at the “grass roots” by establishing a “Schools Program” which will help bring healthy and nutritious food into the schools among other objectives. Further meetings for the Asset Mapping Project and the Schools Project will be hosted on January 11, 2012 in Fresno. Check the “Upcoming Events” link on our main page to stay abreast of the meeting details.
FAQCI believes its objectives of better healthcare and lower costs are achievable with the help of organizations like CHCC and collaborative partnerships with local service providers. If you think healthcare delivery in your area can be improved using this approach, contact CHCC and let us know if we can help.
* Heart Surgeries on Hold at St. Agnes (May 27, 2008). Read More |
"We do need to reduce the rate of increase in health care costs - and a sufficient decrease will make a huge difference in the health care budget and cost burden for America. It will take quite a bit of political courage to get this job done. It will also take some targeted re-engineering of both care delivery and care financing. The alternative to courage and focused action is a continuation and probably a worsening of the status quo - and that is an outcome we really can't afford." 
"Where do premiums come from? Care costs. Medical costs and hospital costs basically create insurance premiums. So when American caregivers shift bad debt costs from covering unpaid care for uninsured people and increase their unit prices to insurers, the insurers automatically pass these cost increases along to everyone who buys insurance. That shifted amount now adds roughly $1200 to the premium costs of each family..." 