Improving Chronic Illness Care
Improving Chronic Illness Care

The MacColl Institute for Healthcare Innovation

The MacColl Institute for Healthcare Innovation at the Group Health Research Institute is the home of Improving Chronic Illness Care.  Named for a Group Health Cooperative founder and pioneering physician, W.A. MacColl, the Institute was created in 1992. Ed Wagner, MD, MPH, is a senior investigator at Group Health Research Institute, ICIC's director, and the director of the MacColl Institute.
 
The mission of the MacColl Institute is to bridge the worlds of research and clinical care, both within Group Health and nationally. Its goal is to develop, evaluate, and disseminate innovations in healthcare delivery. 
 
Since the mid-1990s, the MacColl Institute has focused on research and quality improvement efforts to improve care for the chronically ill, with the goal of closing the gap between patients’ needs for comprehensive chronic care and health care delivery systems originally designed mainly to treat acute illness. Recent work has included fostering regional collaborations between health care systems, local government and, in some cases, purchasers to work together to improve the delivery of care to the chronically ill.
 
New projects include assisting the small medical practice in implementing the principles of the Chronic Care Model—a visual compilation of evidence developed by the MacColl Institute on delivering effective chronic illness care.  Since 2008, MacColl has partnered with Qualis Health in a five-year effort to bring the patient-centered medical home to 50 safety-net clinics across the U.S. In addition, the Institute has an ongoing interest in studying the organizational factors related to the delivery of cancer care in health systems, and applying new, improved models of primary care for older adults.