Teamwork that improves patient care
By Alex Branch
A new collaboration between UNT Health Science Center and JPS Health Network will ensure that physicians receive the highest quality continuing education opportunities and enhance patient care and safety in Tarrant County.
On June 1, the Health Science Center’s Office of Professional and Continuing Education (PACE) began designing and managing continuing education activities for physicians at JPS, which previously operated its own continuing education office.
Continuing medical education, or CME, are activities that maintain, develop and increase the knowledge and skills that physicians use to care for and build relationships with patients. Physicians are required to achieve a certain number of continuing education credits each year.
“This collaboration is exciting because it combines the Health Science Center’s expertise in medical education with JPS’s expertise in clinical care,” said Frank Rosinia, MD, JPS Executive Vice President and Chief Quality Officer. “The community benefits because this partnership heightens the focus on quality of care and patient safety in our region.”
The Health Science Center’s PACE office is one of only a handful of U.S. providers to maintain dual accreditation with commendation by the Accreditation Council on Continuing Medical Education and the American Osteopathic Association. With the new collaboration, about 300 JPS physicians, their clinical practices and data on their patient outcomes will create tremendous potential for innovative education initiatives, said Pam McFadden, Associate Vice President of Professional and Continuing Education at UNTHSC.
The change also allows the Health Science Center and JPS to create a more regionalized and coordinated approach to preventing and treating chronic illnesses, such as diabetes.
“This partnership will allow us to identify gaps in strategies or processes, develop tools or educational programs to fill those gaps and then use the data to measure our success and identify the most effective interventions,” McFadden said. “It creates a brain trust that pools resources to solve our biggest health problems rather than duplicate efforts.”
PACE already has smaller collaborations with other hospitals locally by jointly providing CME activities. The new model with JPS is unique nationally because PACE will work closely to align the education provided at JPS to its patient care goals. It could be replicated with other hospitals in the region and beyond, said Andrew Crim, PACE Executive Director.
“There is strength in numbers,” Dr. Rosinia said. “By working together as one community, we can make a much greater and more lasting impact on the quality of health care.”
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