Michigan outperforms national trends in reducing opioid prescribing after surgery

April 28, 2023

Opioid addiction is the top complication after surgery for patients who have never taken them before. Persistent opioid use happens when patients are prescribed opioids to help with post-surgical pain, but they continue to use the opioids well after post-surgical pain period. The absence of established opioid prescribing guidelines for surgeons to follow contributed to […]

Collaborative Quality Initiatives Continue to Influence National Care Protocols

April 20, 2023

Since Blue Cross launched the Collaborative Quality Initiative model more than 20 years ago, our provider partners have routinely developed many best practices that improve clinical processes, safety and quality. The CQI structure enables rich data collection from a wide variety of clinical sites and fosters deep cooperation across the initiative. As a result, findings […]

Improving Health Care Through Collaboration in Michigan and Beyond

August 18, 2022

If you owned a business, it would be unlikely that you would regularly meet with your competitors to talk about best practices in order to better serve your customers.   Yet Michigan health care providers from competing systems do this regularly to improve health care delivery, on measures from cost to quality. And you, the customer, benefit greatly.    One way providers work together is through statewide […]

CDC highlights Michigan CQI response to COVID-19 antibiotic overuse

February 14, 2022

More than half of Michigan COVID-19 patients received unnecessary antibiotics in the early days of the pandemic, but that number decreased significantly due to a joint effort by the Michigan Collaborative Quality Initiatives (CQIs).  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has taken notice and featured the CQI work in a national stewardship report, […]

The Blue Cross cardiovascular consortium celebrates 25 years of improving patient outcomes

December 9, 2021

Twenty-five years ago, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan partnered with five hospitals to launch the percutaneous coronary intervention registry, a collaborative effort to improve quality, cost and outcomes of angioplasty procedures. Since then, the initiative has grown into a statewide consortium of nearly 50 hospitals and 600 physicians, now called BMC2 (Blue Cross Blue […]

Lessons Learned from MI-COVID19 Initiative Influence Care & Treatment Protocols Statewide

June 30, 2021

As patients became seriously ill with COVID19 in the spring of 2020, emergency departments and hospitals around the state were quickly filling up. Yet, at the time, much was unknown about this virus and how to treat it. Fortunately, in Michigan, the Collaborative Quality Initiative structure offered a foundational process that quickly enabled hospitals statewide […]

Value Partnerships featured in national ABIM Building Trust initiative

May 24, 2021

The Value Partnerships portfolio is featured as a trust-building practice in the American Board of Internal Medicine’s Building Trust Initiative, launched this month. The initiative recognizes the importance of trust in health care as essential to better collaboration among health professionals and better health outcomes for patients. Through the BuildingTrust.org website, ABIM is sharing trust-building […]

Anesthesiology CQI reduces greenhouse gas emissions

April 1, 2021

The Anesthesiology Performance Improvement and Reporting Exchange CQI, or ASPIRE, aims to improve the quality of care and outcomes for patients receiving anesthesia. Now, participants are focusing on improving population health as they help the environment by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. “We often forget that providing health care can generate great amounts of waste and pollution, causing disease […]

Continuous Learning Through Peer Review Makes Angioplasty and Stenting Better in Michigan

March 9, 2021

If you receive an angioplasty at a Michigan facility, you might take comfort in knowing that the team performing the procedure participates in a statewide quality improvement initiative called the BMC2. It’s also likely that the interventional cardiologists who perform the angioplasty have received feedback from their peers, helping them learn and share best practices […]

Improving vascular care in Michigan: What to do when the simpler option turns out to be less safe, more costly

March 1, 2021

Years ago when atherectomy was introduced as an option to remove plaque in the arteries, the hope was that it would be a less costly option because the procedure could be performed in an outpatient setting. In Michigan, other artery-opening methods of balloon and stent angioplasty must be done in a hospital that has an […]