ABQAURP is pleased to announce the selection of Tabassum Salam, MD, FACP, CHCQM as the recipient of the 2017 CHCQM Diplomate Achievement Award.

To read about the other Award Submissions: Click HERE.

Congratulations to Dr. Salam who demonstrated an outstanding example of an IT-enabled care coordination system: the Care Link team. Beginning with the development of clinical pathways to standardize the treatment of surgical patients, robust inter-professional care coordination and discharge planning, and the proactive interaction with the Delaware and Maryland Health Information Networks, this Population Health Management project led to positive outcomes in an impressive population of post-surgical patients. Integrating data exchange into clinical workflow is an impressive task; leveraging this data with predictive modeling into a reduction in length of stay, enabling more patients to return directly home after surgery, and reduced readmissions is outstanding.

Dr. Salam proudly states that, “The development of the IT innovations for Population Health Management positioned our clinical and care coordination teams to make meaningful and timely contributions to the success of patients who underwent knee and hip replacement surgery in this project. The IT innovations as well as the relationships developed by the clinical and care coordination teams broke down significant communication barriers between the many providers, health systems and post-acute agencies that contribute to the patients' care. The use of a shared population health management electronic health record allow a geographically dispersed team to collaborate on the care of the patients and avoid redundancy of efforts. In addition, the novel real-time admission, discharge and laboratory results feeds from the state health information exchanges arm the whole team with tremendously valuable, actionable alerts that had never been available before.

Patient care innovations under Dr. Salam’s leadership make the impressive work at Christiana Care a benchmark for the rest of the nation.

The project clearly embodies the health care quality and management and patient safety principles ABQAURP was looking for in the award selection process. Aligned with our mission, the Care Link team found, “In addition to the technological advances, we did not forget to emphasize the building of relationships with patients, their families and their circle of care. Our team has a much more rounded view of our patients' clinical progress and social and personal needs, and this in turn allows us to guide them to recovery in a far more streamlined manner, while minimizing unnecessary, wasteful clinical activity. We have been able to seamlessly expand this model to the care of other progressively larger and geographically distributed populations in our state.

ABQAURP's CHCQM Award Selection Panel and association Board Members felt that Dr. Salam's project, "incorporated all of the elements of a model quality project" and successfully "integrated health IT into clinical outcomes and set a stage for addressing the needs for Population Health and for implementing MACRA".

ABQAURP would like to extend our sincere Thank You to Dr. Salam and all who submitted their outstanding achievements in quality and patient safety that have led to improvement, positive outcomes, and the advancement of Health Care Quality Management and Patient Safety.

In accepting the award, Dr. Salam graciously says, "It is wonderful to receive this award on behalf of the team at Care Link, a truly interprofessional group of Population Health clinicians and Information Technology specialists. It is through their persistent hard work that we are able to bring targeted resources to patients and their families at essential healthcare-related moments in their lives. And the best part about the Care Link team is the innovation, development, and expansion continues every day; we are able to grow the network of people benefiting from our Population Health interventions."

Join us at the 40^th Annual Health Care Quality & Patient Safety Conference to congratulate Dr. Salam and celebrate all of our Diplomate's achievements. For more event information, please visit: www.abqaurp.org/AnnualConference.

About Tabassum Salam, MD, FACP, CHCQM
Senior Physician Advisor, Population Health Medical Director, Care Link Services - Christiana Care Health System

Dr. Tabassum Salam is a board-certified Internal Medicine physician. She has been at Christiana Care Health System for over fifteen years. She spent many years as a clinician-educator and Associate Director of the Internal Medicine residency program. In this role, she practiced in both inpatient and outpatient clinical settings and educated resident physicians and medical students. Currently, Dr. Salam is a Senior Physician Advisor for Population Health at Christiana Care Health System. In this role, she leads and orchestrates population health management projects for the health system. She serves as the Medical Director of Care Link Services, leading a care coordination team of nurses, pharmacists and social workers who care for large populations throughout the state of Delaware. The Care Link team focuses on improving health outcomes and optimizing utilization of health care services in the populations it cares for. Dr. Salam also serves as the Governor of the Delaware Chapter of the American College of Physicians.