Organizational Capacity - QMPA CARE Project

Organizational Capacity

About Us - History

Queens Medical Professional Association has a ten-year history of aiding medical professionals. It all started ten years ago on December 2008 with the US markets collapsing under the weight of the subprime mortgage crisis. Doctor Omnes Amigon and his group of medical friends came together to discuss the inevitable increase in patients without insurance. In addition, with the new president’s pledge to reform healthcare there was a storm brewing for healthcare industry that was bound to upset the current standard. With their practices in Astoria, Jackson Heights, and Corona, the doctors decided that they needed to band together to provide health services to the community in this time of great need. At the same time, this new group of medical professionals would provide a vital networking tool to discuss daily issues encountered at their practices and ways to improve them. They formed the Queens Medical Professional Association with the first goal of setting up a community health fair.

The first community health fair was held on August 2019 at the Dutch Kills Playground in Astoria with cooperation from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Department of Parks and Recreation, and local church groups. Since then, the organization has held the annual community health fair at different parks throughout Astoria, Jackson Heights, Corona, Elmhurst, and Woodside. At the health fair doctors provide blood pressure readings, glucose readings, basic vitals check, and health consultations. Each participant in the health fair was provided a basic health folder packed with preventative health education and their subjective, objective, assessment, plan (SOAP) note of the day. At the end before leaving the health fair, a volunteer takes the carbon copy of the patient’s SOAP note and keeps it on file. During the next weekend, the doctors will pick out particular worrying cases to follow up on.

About Our Organization Today

The structure of QMPA is based on the hierarchical model of organization. The founder, Doctor Amigon, is the association’s president. Under him are three basic sections of the organization: Finance, Health, and Social.

Finance Section

John Chen CPA, has run the finance department since its original creation in 2008. He is a close friend of Dr. Amigon and aids in sorting out the association’s finances. Helping him is our resident, retired bookkeeper, Sally Hu. Sally was originally a patient of Mr. Amigon and leapt and the chance to participate in community affairs. Throughout the years they have been aided by accounting interns brought over from the CUNY Colleges. Both, Sally and John have done a fantastic job at organizing the money pooled at events for future events. They have also help the organization keep track of expenses and provided reports for expected future expenses.

Health Section

The health section is blessed with Dr. Amigon’s close friends from medical school. It comprises of a group of 12 doctors all in primary care. Over time the group has expanded to include specialists and other allied health professionals such as medical assistants.

Social Section

The social section is composed of church and other religious leaders as well as nongovernment organizations from the neighborhoods. Old friends Sammy Lopez and Daisy Lopez, restaurant storeowners from Corona, lead the social section in community discussions at parks, hospices, church, bingo halls, and town hall meetings. Both have just recently retired from the food industry and have poured their soul into community efforts.

Our Goals and Plan for the Value Based Healthcare Initiative

For our value based healthcare initiative we have formed a specific team of seven people for the task. As usual at the top is President Amigon who directs the general basis of the program. He oversees the organization’s funding and human networking connections. He is aided by an executive assistant to deal with a variety of matters ranging from phone calls to presentation setups. An IT subgroup of two people: EHR specialist and IT Assistant are in charge of computer related issues. The EHR specialists will be acquainted with popular EHR software such as Epic, MDLand, eClinicalworks and allscripts. By being familiar with the programs, the EHR specialist should also know the possible ways to change the programming chain. This changing point is where the IT assistant comes in. The IT assistant will provide computer troubleshooting for the transition process and during computer system updates. The core of the initiative lies with the three project managers who will oversee the entire process from start to finish at the 30 medical practices. They will travel for face-to-face interactions with the doctors they are assigned to.

Role	Responsibilities
President	Directing program, networking with other execs, General guidance
Executive Assistant	Administrative tasks: Answering phone, setting appointments, organizing files in numerical order
EHR Specialist	EHR functionality, Software adaption, troubleshooting
IT Assistant	Software clearance, troubleshooting,
Project Manager	Physical travel to practices, assessment of practices,

           

After the receiving funds, the project managers will visit their assigned medical practices. There they will get acquainted to the daily operations of the primary care doctor. Each project manager is assigned to 10 medical practices. Within the first month they should have visited and observed their 10 assigned medical practices at least three times. On the last day of the first month of the initiative, the program managers will submit a preliminary report on the status and condition of their 10 assigned medical practices. Then, a meeting will be held involving all members of the project to discuss potential hazards for each clinic. A tally will be made to determine which EHR is the most popular among the 30 medical practices. The EHR specialist and IT assistant will focus their efforts on the EHR priority list.

For the second month, the project managers will continue to observe the medical practice’s workflow and make comparisons to their report. Any mistakes or inaccuracies made in the first report will be proofread and cleaned up for the second report due by the end of the month. It is during the second month that visit days to medical offices will have to be staggered, so as to have at least three consecutive days in a row at the same medical practice. The second report on the medical practices will have workflow diagrams specific to each practice. Again a meeting will be convened to determine specific adjustments that need to be made for the value based healthcare initiative.

On the third month, project managers will begin suggesting improvements to the workflow model at the medical practices. Various training sessions will also begin being hosted by QMPA at its main base in Jackson Heights, Queens. The goal would be to incentivize medical staff and auxiliary health staff to come to the meetings. Any medical practice unable to come to the hosted meetings will have a project manager host a session at the practice. Changes to the workflow should be small as to prevent major losses in productivity for the primary care provider.

On the sixth month, a full implementation of the value based healthcare reimbursement will be in place. Any hiccups or technical issues will be forwarded to the IT assistant and EHR specialists. EHR software companies will be contacted to determine a way to adjust the software. From that point forward health information will be compiled from patient visits and interactions. Specific metrics will be observed to determine the percentage of the patient population that fulfills value based criteria. The next assessment of the data gathered will be during the first quarterly meeting three months later.

At the quarterly meetings, the QMPA value based healthcare group will determine possible ways to improve patient values from specific practices. Again the project manager will implement improvements, before the next assessment three months later. This cycle of recommendation and assessment will continue for one and half years. At the end of the assessments and evaluations, the last half a year will be spent determining significant weakness and strengths of the project. A full assessment of the various factors in play will end with a final report that has ideas for possible improvements.