Maine-based Quality Initiatives and Action Interview with Christopher Pezzullo, DO
March 2022

You can view the interview here.

 

MePCA PSO-ECRI-MDDC Collaborative is nationally recognized by AHRQ
January 2022

MePCA PSO, working with ECRI, has partnered with the Maine Developmental Disabilities Council in an initiative focused on the care of those with Intellectual Disabilities and Developmental Disabilities (IDDD). In doing so, AHRQ has recognized the collaborative as unique and noteworthy, and posted a case study on their website describing how a PSO can collaborate with a community or state organization to improve the health of a population.

As part of the collaborative, MePCA PSO held a PSO Safe Table focused on IDDD in August 2020. Twenty clinicians along with a dozen staff of MPCA participated. Andrew Martin, ECRI and Nancy Cronin, Maine Developmental Disabilities Council, presented best practices and vignettes about patients with IDDD. National statistics from the ECRI PSO regarding events with patients with IDDD were culled to include only ambulatory care events. At the end of the presentation a draft tool was shared that guided clinicians in the assessment and treatment of patients with IDDD.

The audience was clearly interested and engaged. At a clinical advisory meeting a week later, we asked clinicians what they thought of the event. Some comments included:

  • “This was a very necessary discussion.”
  • “The topic was very uncomfortable. However, it was not so uncomfortable as to make me shut down, rather it made me interested in learning more.”
  • “We need to learn a lot more about IDDD. We could really use guidance on how to interact with these patients—we never received any training in this.”

Our partnership with ECRI has been important, and we are delighted to work with such a professional team. The draft tool has been finalized and will be cobranded for distribution among all ECRI and MePCA PSO members. We are now including IDDD issues and implications in all of our future safe tables.

Resources:

IDDD Readiness form

Case Study