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1/22/03 Seattle, WA - Practice Partner is pleased to announce that it has received a "PARTNERSHIPS FOR QUALITY" demonstration project grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), U.S. Public Health Service. The grant will provide $98,676 the first year and over the next three years it will total an anticipated $1.3 million. Practice Partner will conduct the project in collaboration with the Practice Partner Research Network (PPRNet) and up to 100 medical practices across the country that use Practice Partner's popular electronic medical records system, Practice Partner Patient Records.
The purpose of the demonstration project is to expand PPRNet's successful approach to quality improvement in primary care practices. The new grant will assist in an effort to build a network of up to 100 medical practices in 30 states, which will add to the current network of 40 practices already participating in PPRNet.
The goal of the project will be to improve health care quality in the following areas: heart disease and stroke, diabetes mellitus, cancer screening, immunizations, respiratory disease/infectious disease, mental health and substance abuse, nutrition and obesity, and drug prescribing in the elderly by tracking adherence to seventy-three practice guideline. Based on each practice's data, PPRNet will perform site visits and consultations to improve patient health. Such measures were shown to improve patient health in a previous project conducted by PPRNet.
"It is hard for the busy, practicing physician to apply important health care quality interventions to their entire patient populations," commented Andrew Ury, MD, a family physician and president of Practice Partner. This project will use the power of the Electronic Medical Record along with other interventions to provide physicians with the framework and feedback they need to improve health care quality. Ultimately, in this project we hope to have an impact on up to one million patients in 30 states and demonstrate significant improvements in health care quality."
Seattle-based Practice Partner is a leader in the development and marketing of innovative Electronic Medical Records and Practice Management products for medical offices and large health care enterprises. Practice Partner, founded in 1983 by Dr. Andrew Ury to provide comprehensive software solutions for office-based physicians, is one of the pioneers in electronic medical records software. More than 1200 offices use Practice Partner software, and more than 700 of them use Practice Partner Patient Records. With over a decade of experience with the EMR (Practice Partner released its first version of Practice Partner Patient Records in 1987), Practice Partner has created software products that are finely honed to the real world needs of physicians, nurses, and office professionals.
The Practice Partner Research Network (PPRNet) is a unique and pioneering concept in practice-based research. PPRNet is a consortium of primary health care providers practicing in 25 States and academic researchers from 3 Universities. A longitudinal patient database comprised of data from electronic medical records (EMRs) from participating physicians throughout the United States provides the basis for PPRNet's research activities. PPRNet's design protects the confidentiality of patients and physicians and requires minimal time commitment for busy physicians. Modeled after the Ambulatory Sentinel Practice Network (ASPN) and other similar practice-based research networks, PPRNet addresses questions important for primary care practice. Currently, 63 physician practices, representing 417 health care providers, in 23 states are members of PPRNet.
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