2021 Pinnacle Award Recipient: University of Michigan Health
Group Practice-Health System-Corporation
The University of Michigan Health (UM Health), advances health to serve Michigan and beyond – pursuing excellence every day in three hospitals, 125 clinics and home care operations that handle more than 2.3 million outpatient visits a year, as well as educate the next generation of physicians and health care providers.
The University of Michigan Medical School is one of the nation’s biomedical research powerhouses, with total research funding of more than $500 million. UM Health has a long-standing history with embedding clinical pharmacists in primary care clinics to aide in chronic disease management such as diabetes, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia. This pharmacists’ care model began in 1999 at one primary care clinic and has since expanded to all 14 primary care clinics, as well as select specialty care clinics.
In 2016, UM Health established a partnership with a regional supermarket with retail pharmacy chain to extend our primary care clinic model into the community environment. In 2018, the UM Health Hypertension Pharmacists’ Program was selected as a top program in the US and invited to undergo an extensive evaluation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC found that patients who received care from the pharmacists achieved better blood pressure control within 3 and 6 months of starting the program than those who did not participate. The CDC also found that patients in the program received better medication management as evidenced by more frequent adjustments to their hypertension medications than those not in the program. These positive outcomes were achieved with less primary care physician (PCP) visits creating better access for UM Health’s PCPs. Based on UM Health’s HTN model, the CDC developed an Implementation Guide to share with other health care practitioners which is now available on the CDC website. The UM Health program pushes innovation to meet the needs of its patients with the ever-changing climate, ensuring that pharmacists continue to play a vital role in hypertension management.