February 4, 2008

The Michigan Primary Care Consortium (MPCC) Steering Committee members elected new officers and affirmed its commitment to improve the quality of primary health care delivery in Michigan during their first meeting of 2008.

The MPCC is a collaborative group made of 27 Michigan organizations representing primary care practitioners, public health agencies, manufacturers, academic institutions and others. The consortium was officially created in late 2007 to accelerate the implementation of The Primary Care Initiative for a Healthier Michigan. The initiative is a plan to resolve major primary care system problems and to use process improvement and redesign techniques to transform the way doctors and their staff care for patients.

"The Consortium brings together the skills and knowledge of traditional and new partners to find innovative solutions to challenges in the primary care system," said Janet Olszewski, Chair of the Consortium and Director of the Michigan Department of Community Health (MDCH). "Working together, we can accomplish what no single organization can do alone."

Problems the consortium will address include reimbursement policies, divergent clinical practice guidelines, patient registries, electronic medical record systems, practice redesign through process improvement, and coordination of community resources - all areas that can either support or undermine the delivery of preventive services and chronic disease management in primary care settings.

The 2008 elected officers of the Consortium's Steering Committee include the Director of the Michigan Department of Community Health and Chair of the Consortium Janet Olszewski, Vice-Chair Donald Nease, MD (Associate Professor, University of Michigan Health System), Secretary/Treasurer Kim Sibilsky (Exec Director, Michigan Primary Care Association), and three Members at Large: Joseph Fortuna, MD (Automotive Industry Action Group), Dennis Paradis (Exec Director, Michigan Osteopathic Assn), and Juliet Santos (President, MI Council of Nurse Practitioners).