Virtual Integrated Practice at Rush

Virtual Integrated Practice

What VIP Means for You

While hospitals, community health centers, and a few large practices can employ teams of social workers, nurse practitioners, and other, this is out of the reach of most physicians offices today. There simply isn't enough time or money to develop such a team, nor the space to house them in the office. Furthermore, when doctors and other health professionals do work together, they usually communicate through inefficient systems that haven't changed much in the past three decades: passing notes back and forth in the form of prescriptions, signed orders, and mailed progress reports.

In VIP, practices will develop their own "virtual teams" to improve care for their most challenging, complex patients. Virtual teams will take evidence-based practice guidelines and will build the systems by which these guidelines will be implemented in the practice. Information systems and communication tools will be selected by the team to promote efficient communication -- both in "real time" and via media such as e-mail. Continuous evaluation of patient satisfaction and clinical outcomes will allow Virtual Integrated Practice to continuously improve their services to the target population of patients.

Virtual Integrated Practice...

keeps patient care where it belongs: with the primary care physician who can integrate the complex medical, psychological and social needs of the patient.
helps physicians provide better-coordinated care for older patients who often have many different health problems going on at the same time.
reduces demands on the physician's time and allows increased productivity.
brings the patient in as an active member of the health care team.
provides a quantitative approach to patient care, and delivers cycles of continuous quality improvement.
can help providers improve performance on HEDIS and other managed care audits, leading to financial incentives from many payers.
reduces liability exposure through improvements in documentation and patient follow-up.

Most important, VIP results in greater professional satisfaction. VIP allows nurses, physicians, pharmacists and others to do the tasks that they do best, and delegate other responsibilities to more appropriate members of the health care team. VIP will help physicians and other health care professionals discover the positive reasons they chose careers in health care.



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