Diabetes Prevention and Control Program

CHIP

Comprehensive Healthcare Improvement Project

The Rhode Island Diabetes Prevention and Control Program’s Diabetes CHIP Program is an in-state Diabetes Collaborative, working with all of the Rhode Island community health centers (CHCs) to help improve their capacity to meet the needs of their patients with diabetes.  CHIP supports building infrastructure for continuous quality improvement of diabetes care in health centers and primary care sites. 

The CHIP program, modeled after the Bureau of Primary Health Care  National Health Disparities Collaborative, provides:

• Assistance in assessing barriers to better patient care (focus groups)
• Information systems support and training
• Coordination of communication with other CHCs within the state
• Funding to support infrastructure, systems, and computer equipment as needed
• Patient education materials

To date, most of the CHCs belong to the in-state program and have documented improvement in the care of their patients with diabetes.

What is the Diabetes Collaborative?

The National Health Disparities Collaborative, a partnership of the Health Services and Resources Administration (HRSA) Bureau of Primary Health Care, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and the  CDC Division of Diabetes Translation (DDT), has been working since January 1999 to improve chronic illness care within federally funded health centers.  This coordinated effort is referred to as the Diabetes Collaborative.  The purpose of the Diabetes Collaborative is to improve diabetes performance measures through the following:

• improved health care delivery systems, 
• increased health care access,
• decreased health disparities among the medically underserved populations. 

The Centers participating in the Collaborative agree to adopt shared national and local measures based on proven guidelines.  Measures are aligned with the American Diabetes Association's national guidelines for diabetes care, external reports such as  HEDIS (Health Plan Employer Data and Information Set) , or other expert guidelines focusing on cardiac indicators, retinal indicators, renal measures, and dental measures.  
The current measures and goals of the Diabetes Collaborative are highlighted on the following web pages:  Collaborative Measures & Goals 

How does it work?

The methods include building capacity of health center teams to excel in the care of patients with diabetes through:

• excellence in health center systems, 
• collaborative learning and action, 
• transfer of knowledge and expansion of partnerships at the community, state and national level. 

The results to date indicate the success of this collaborative model in improving the HbA1c test rates among the health centers’ diabetes populations. 

How many health centers participate?

To date, more than 300 federally funded health centers and more than 30 Diabetes Prevention and Control Programs (DCPs) have been trained on the Collaborative’s Quality Improvement Models. The DCPs are providing technical assistance, resources and linkages to the health centers to support their improvement strategies. The  DDT facilitates monthly calls with the DCPs for networking, communication and sharing of ideas on how to support the health centers.  The collaborative sites in Rhode Island include Thundermist, Blackstone Valley, Providence Community Health Centers and Wood River Health Services. 

What does the Collaborative provide?

The Collaborative provides:

• Coordination of communication and reports among CHC’s across the country and within a region
• Travel monies for CHC’s teams to attend four Collaborative conferences within the first year
• A Collaborative list-serve
• Information systems support and training
• Other forms of support

Please contact Patricia Kelly-Flis 
for more information