Muckler cites a recent situation in which a female patient exhibited signs of depression but wasn't ready to consider medication. But when the patient coordinator made the follow-up call a week later, she sensed that the patient's symptoms were worsening and that she wanted to pursue treatment.

"I jumped in then, and worked with [the patient] to make a plan for treatment. Under the traditional system, that might not have happened until the patient came in for a follow-up visit," Muckler points out.

"What drew me here is that I knew I'd have more time to see patients," she adds, "because the patient coordinators would be doing the kind of things I would have done alone in another clinic."

Lasting legacy

Kilo hopes that, as word of participants' successes gets around, more practices will jump on the IDCOP bandwagon. Even if that is slow in coming, the body of knowledge that is being gathered is nothing short of "spectacular," says Kilo.

Over the coming years, a new Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) initiative called "Pursuing Perfection: Raising the Bar for Health Care Performance" will take the IDCOP concepts a step further. The $20.9 million undertaking, which evolved following an RWJF survey in which 80 percent of responding providers said the healthcare system needed fundamental changes, will fund its 12 grantee organizations — systems and physician practices — to create and implement plans that foster the needed improvements. Preliminary results will be published this spring.

"I think we can say with confidence that this is indeed hard work, and that people have put a lot of time and effort into making innovations," says Pat Rutherford, IHI vice president and director of IDCOP. "But once implemented, the yields for patients, providers, and staff are substantial."

Bonnie Darves can be reached at bdarves@physicianspractice.com.

This article originally appeared in the January/February 2002 issue of Physicians Practice.