Managing for Quality Rather than Profit

HealthPartners is a collection of medical, dental, pharmacy, hospital, and health promotion and research units in the upper Midwest. The dental component includes 24 dental clinics and a network of 2,500 dentists in a PPO plan, supported by a quality management team. An important feature of this network of clinics and dentists is the opportunity for pooling and analyzing data on oral health- care outcomes. These data are used to mentor the entire office team, to drive systemwide improvements in treatment protocols, and as part of providers' compensation. The management function is centralized but entirely within our very large group practice.