MICHIGAN ASSOCIATION FOR HEALTHCARE QUALITY: Rebekah Bundesen, senior provider performance specialist with Priority Health, is currently serving a one-year term as president of the organization. Founded in 1974, MAHQ was formed to improve health care quality across the state by bringing like-minded people such as nurses, clinical providers and those working in information management and quality improvement to create a networking and education forum to exchange ideas. Each year the association presents an annual conference and its leaders are available for corporate trainings, speaker presentations and general advice.
Crain's Detroit Business: What role does the association have in improving quality for Michiganders?
Rebekah Bundesen: When you think of quality, it is all relative. For physicians, some see quality as having a friendly conversation and then receiving good news on the patient experience. For others, quality is whether their decisions and the care itself were accurate for the patient. Medical errors are the third leading cause of death. That needs to be reduced. We need to close the gap by working with doctors to improve their quality scores. We also work with hospitals the same way. The association is meant to be a resource to help those who work in the industry and seek to improve health care quality in all areas. We have a wide range of diverse leaders on the board that can appeal to many different fields within health care. Quality is expansive. Everyone will need to develop different skills to increase quality in Michigan. The association acts as a support network and provides continued learning activities, career development tools, a student program and a robust speaker's bureau for their own learning sessions.
What do you do as president and what are your goals?
As president, I'm responsible for rallying the troops and making sure the corporate bylaws are followed. I oversee the board of directors and our committees. We consist of a wonderful team that is diverse on many levels from time in health care service to ethnicity, age and professional experience. Many of the directors act as chairpersons of their own committees. Our most active committees are the communications, membership and education. Some of my goals this year have been to expand membership to reach more nursing and medical students, administrators and those in the health information management and technology fields. Because of coronavirus, we created a new logo and have had time to begin work on a longstanding goal of building an improved website to communicate to members and the public at large.
The association holds a number of CME sessions, seminars and an annual meeting. What are some of the topics discussed?
Due to COVID-19 we had to postpone quite a few of our activities. This year we most likely will have a virtual conference. Our 2019 conference was successful. We had a lovely tropical theme with lots of colors. The title was "Get Off Your Island: Integrating Healthcare Teams." The idea is that you can't stay on your island and do your job. You need to get off your island and integrate with other islands. Our topics were about collaboration. We did an another piece on compliance law for practices that was done over our first Facebook Live session. We do a lot of teaching on the advanced payment models required by Medicare as well. We delivered a process improvement session to a practice delivery group team last year. We want to expand and do more e-learnings and just be a support to the health care industry. We all have problems in our organization as well as ourselves, but what makes us so unique is our ability to persevere. We even had a conference once where we lost power. What did we do? We led a panel discussion by candlelight.
You are currently a senior provider performance specialist at Priority Health. What are your duties there?
My job at Priority Health is actually really cool. Sometimes I kind of feel like a secret agent behind the scenes. I'm always trying to dig around and figure out how I can improve health care. So I do a lot of research behind the scenes. I just never thought I'd be able to use math and analytics to help others. But here I am. My day consists of running reports, looking at trends and high cost areas. Then I create dashboards and reporting mechanisms and strategize with providers and executive teams to improve patient care. It's very mathy, very analytic, but I also get to build relationships with leaders at hospitals, systems and physician practices. Together, we implement strategies to improve how health care is delivered. There are many people like me, working behind the scenes to try and improve what is broken in our delivery model.
Tell me more about yourself.
Like anyone, I want to do a good job at what I do. That's why I keep learning and networking to figure out best practices. I teach undergrad classes online at Liberty University and I'm pursuing a Ph.D. in epidemiology so I can continue to contribute to this field. I began my career in a nursing home, then a practice group, and now I have been at three different health insurance companies. My focus is business process improvement. I have a certified professional in health care quality certification as well. I grew up in Waterford in Southeast Michigan and graduated from Central Michigan University, where I also completed my master's degree. I have three dogs I'm obsessed with, a husband and 12-year-old son named Dakota. He is taller than me now, I can't believe it. I am also involved in animal rescues as a volunteer. I'm passionate about helping others and love to use my skills and knowledge to make the world a better place.
Describe the physical limitations you have been dealing with.
I have a progressive disease (lumbar spondylosis with spinal stenosis and battered nerve root syndrome) affecting my spine and joints the past 10 years. I have good and bad days. I started using a power chair this past year so that I can be more mobile and active during my pain flares. I have a spine cord stimulator (Nevro HF10 device) that has helped immensely. I've been going through some of the adaptive needs that I have and it really opened my eyes to a new perspective. I try and remember this perspective every day as I work in the health care field. Every physician group I work with seeks to manage the risk of their population. The one thing I remember is that I likely am one of the medium to high-risk patients on their lists. The programs I work on and advocate for really truly help people. I make sure it is the same level of care that I would want for myself.
What is a chief concern of your association now?
Cybersecurity is so important in maintaining patient safety and quality. Medical record information is worth more than a credit card on the black market. There's such a big appetite for stealing those records. We have an exclusive presentation on the dark web that one of our board members delivers. We have a panel of experts who are on the board and can discuss these important topics.
What are health plans doing to improve quality?
The first thing health plans need to do is get an accurate picture of all of the claims that are coming in. If you are a patient and not aware of a claim, which is a bill, after you see your physician, we may see some diabetes or hypertension going on with you. That's all we know from claims. We don't know if you have complications. We don't know if you have issues with your medications. Maybe you have. Maybe you have transportation issues or a language barrier. We try to make sure as a health plan that we're capturing the full scope of your illness so we can work with your physician to improve your care. One of my jobs is to make sure we are in touch with your physician so we have a correct picture of your condition in case we need to get you enrolled into a care management program. For example, if you are a diabetic, we probably need your lab information to make sure everything is being managed appropriately. We want to make sure you getting are getting what you need as a member. I just want members to know I'm here. I'm behind the scenes. I'm making sure that everything goes smooth.
Did the COVID-19 pandemic affect health care quality workers?
When coronavirus hit, it affected so many people in different ways. We had some members of the health care community working overtime, long hours. Others were furloughed. We have a student ambassador program with 12 students. They act as ambassadors for a number of universities that include Grand Valley State, University of Michigan, Schoolcraft College and Oakland University. The students also do projects for the association to gain experience. Some of them weren't able to get into internships because of COVID-19 and are working on our new website design, pulling our old content and create new. They're going to make it relevant for today's audience for students or professionals to make it user friendly.
You said that COVID-19 has changed our health care landscape forever. How so?
We were forced to innovate. The pandemic put such strains on our infrastructure. It was difficult to stay in touch with everyone we needed to be close with. We learned how to assess current operations in a virtual environment. Our board just finalized our new mission, vision and values statement. It was because of our adaptability during COVID we were able to get so much done. With our new bylaws, policies, website, upcoming medical journal, and now strategic mission, we are like a brand new association. I improved my relationships with the provider community because we struggled through this historic event together. We will need to take what we learned during our response to COVID and expand into a new way of delivering and performing medicine. The idea is to collaborate with others and work in teams. We are sharing more information now than ever before for better patient records. We are stronger together.
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