GynCare: how one IPA got better clinical outcomes and a closer culture

When is a medical management opportunity a corporate culture opportunity? The folks at Hill Physicians Group in the San Francisco Bay Area found out when they launched a pilot program to try to improve the management of gynecological surgeries. In an example of the increasingly inter-twined challenges of medical management under managed care, physicians, clinical managers, and others at this sophisticated Northern California IPA have seen their efforts to improve the delivery of women's healthcare pay off, with shifts in surgical approaches that produced impressive results, plus unexpected benefits to the organization's physician culture. But no one's saying it was an easy process.