Press Releases

Hill Physicians Medical Group Named Among Top 10 by Integrated Healthcare Association for Second Consecutive Year

Selection Based on Hill Physicians’ Performance in Clinical Quality, Patient Satisfaction, and Use of Information Technology

San Ramon, CA (October 31, 2005)— Hill Physicians Medical Group, one of the largest independent medical groups in the U.S., was named among the top 10 performing medical groups in Northern California by the Integrated Healthcare Association (IHA). This is the second year in a row that Hill Physicians has received this honor.

The best performing groups were selected from 225 California practices, representing 35,000 physicians, which participate in IHA’s statewide Pay for Performance (P4P) program. To qualify, a physician group had to perform well on three measures: clinical results, patient experience, and the adoption of information technology. All top-performing groups were highly rated on using clinical data to manage patient populations and using technology to support physician decision-making during patient interactions.

“We are proud to again be named among the top medical groups in California” said Steve McDermott, CEO of Hill Physicians. “This honor underscores the value—both clinically and economically—of our continuing investment in the latest information technologies to streamline administration, improve communication with health plans and providers, and enhance clinical care.”

The P4P program compares physician groups against 14 measures of clinically recommended preventive care (e.g., breast cancer and cholesterol screening) and chronic care (e.g., asthma and diabetes). Patient satisfaction is determined through a mailed survey that asks consumers to rate physicians on communication, the timeliness of care and service, access to specialists, and overall satisfaction with the doctor and the care they received.

“The real driver of IHA scores is the adoption of information technology,” said Tom Williams, Executive Director of IHA. “Several recent studies, including the Institute of Medicine’s Fostering Rapid Advances in Health, have shown that investments in systems like electronic medical records (EMR), centralized patient registries, and decision support tools substantially improve medical outcomes. This is mirrored by our own results. On average, medical groups like Hill Physicians, which scored high on IT measures, also scored significantly higher on clinical results than groups with little or no IT investment.”

Hill Physicians’ commitment to information technology took a giant leap forward late last year with its announcement of the largest private deployment of an EMR system in the U.S. This system, which just successfully concluded its pilot phase, will be gradually expanded across the Hill Physicians network of 1,600 medical offices.