A message from Dr. Faris Ahmad, medical director, Clinical Partnerships
Population Health CQIs are helping improve the health of Michigan residents

Since Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan launched its first Collaborative Quality Initiative more than 20 years ago, the CQI program has grown to more than 20 initiatives that help improve the safety and quality of health care across Michigan. While the vast majority of quality initiatives have used CQI data collection processes to improve surgical and medical processes and procedures, we recently launched a few new CQIs that apply CQI data collection principles to areas that can help improve the health of the state’s residents. We call these our “Population Health CQIs.”

Here's a list of these CQIs and their areas of focus:

The CQI program has had a significant influence on virtually all hospitals in Michigan. Annually, more than half a million Michigan patients are directly affected by the program’s quality improvement activities. 

The CQI model has been especially successful at encouraging providers to collaborate to improve quality of care, patient outcomes, physician practice behaviors and the culture of how medicine is delivered. These efforts have resulted in benefits tied to:

• Reduction in complications
• Reduction in hospital admissions and emergency department visits
• Enhancements to practitioner skills
• Improvements in the standard of care for all residents of Michigan and beyond

Integration between primary care physicians and specialists, typified by the CQI model, is crucial to treating both acute and chronic illness. As people seek care for these conditions, ensuring the specialist and primary care provider are both aware of and aligned with their patients’ treatment plans improves access to care, outcomes and patient experience. In short, engaging the primary care providers into the CQI platform will help achieve the aims of the CQIs and provide better coordinated care.

More details on population health CQIs

Here are some additional details about these CQIs:

Michigan Collaborative for Type 2 Diabetes

• Primary aims: Improving care for patients with Type 2 diabetes through increasing the use of continuous glucose monitors, promoting low carbohydrate eating patterns and increasing the use of SGLT2 inhibitors and GLP-1 receptor agonists consistent with evidence-based guidelines
• Website: mct2d.org

Inspiring Health Advances in Lung Care

• Primary aims:
• Help medical providers across the state accelerate the acquisition and implementation of evidence-based guidelines for asthma (pediatric and adult) and COPD, and provide a framework for implementation of these guidelines. 
• Improve the early identification of patients who need help and increase awareness and recognition of the risks of toxicities related to frequent rescue medication and oral corticosteroid use
• Website: inhalecqi.org

Michigan Back Collaborative

• Primary aims:
• Through engaging providers at first contact, decrease the number of patients whose acute low back pain progresses toward chronic low back pain. The focus of first-contact clinician education includes evidence-based techniques that include communication techniques derived from cognitive-behavioral therapy, care provision linked to stratification of risk and guideline-concordant use of imaging and prescription medications.
• Develop statewide engagement in following current evidence-based guidelines and identify new guidelines to be tested and implemented within the CQI framework.
• Website: mibac.org

Michigan Mental Innovation Network and Program Design

• Primary aims: To establish a statewide partnership of health care systems for suicide prevention, to improve outcomes (suicide attempt and death) and to improve access to and engagement in evidence-based services
• Website: henryford.com/mimind

How to participate

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan and Blue Care Network are nonprofit corporations and independent licensees of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.