ACMPE Honors 2004 Award Recipients Who Represent Ideals of Medical-Practice Management

SAN FRANCISCO -- The Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) and the American College of Medical Practice Executives (ACMPE), the certification and standard-setting body of MGMA, have presented the 2004 national awards of the ACMPE Honors Program, the official awards program of MGMA. The select individuals and organizations were honored during the MGMA 2004 Annual Conference in San Francisco.

The recipients of the five 2004 awards are:

Marshall M. Baker, FACMPE – Harry J. Harwick Lifetime Achievement Award

Described by admirers as “the quintessential networker,” Marshall M. Baker has contributed to medical group practice in dozens of leadership roles during his 35-year medical practice management and consulting career. Among his more visible accomplishments, Baker has served as ACMPE Board president; helped develop the ACMPE Scholarship Program and endowed a scholarship named for his father, practice executive Win Baker; introduced a collaborative patient wellness program in his community; and facilitated current procedural terminology (CPT) coding adoption and resource-based relative value system (RBRVS) development and adoption. Baker has worked in executive administrator positions in medical practice positions in the Midwest and western United States and is a consulting executive with Physician Advisory Services Inc., Boise, Idaho, which he joined in 1991.

 The Harry J. Harwick Lifetime Achievement Award is the Associations’ highest recognition, given to an individual who has displayed a lifetime of achievement and made outstanding, nationally recognized contributions to health care delivery, administration and education in medical group practice.

Alan L. Gieseman, MBA, CMPE, CPA, FHFMA, CHE – Medical Practice Executive of the Year Award

 Alan Gieseman, MBA, CMPE, CPA, FHFMA, CHE, executive director of White-Wilson Medical Center (WWMC), a 47-physician multi-specialty practice in Fort Walton Beach, Fla., is recognized for engineering a business turnaround at WWMC, taking it from an operating loss of $1.8 million to a profit of $600,000 – a $2.4 million swing in one year. The direction and vision that Gieseman brought to WWMC propelled it from a financially floundering organization to a profitable, developing entity positioning itself as the community’s physician practice of choice.

 The Medical Practice Executive of the Year Award, sponsored by Hayes Management Consulting, honors a medical group practice executive who has exhibited exceptional leadership and management proficiency to enhance strategic and operational effectiveness of health care delivery in his/her practice and community through a recent, noteworthy achievement.

Nicholas J. Wolter, MD – Physician Executive of the Year Award

 The leadership and vision of Nicholas J. Wolter, MD, now the chief executive officer of Deaconess Billings (Mont.) Clinic, helped to create the organization’s integrated health system in 1993 with a group practice at its core. This model for healthcare delivery was the first of its kind in the region and has resulted in excellent financial ratios, upgraded and expanded facilities, technology investments to improve care and market share growth of 8 percent in a highly competitive environment. Under Wolter’s leadership, the organization has received third-party recognition for its investments in patient safety and quality infrastructure. Wolter has also advanced the clinic’s charity care policy, which states that it will treat any patient, regardless of ability to pay.

 The Physician Executive of the Year Award, sponsored by Cross Country Consulting, recognizes a physician executive from a medical group practice – led by an MGMA or ACMPE member – who has exhibited outstanding leadership to achieve exceptional medical group performance in the delivery of health care in his/her practice and community through personal example and collaborative team management.

 Edward B. Stevens Article of the Year Award – Karen Rawlings, MBA

Karen Rawlings, MBA, chief operating officer, Department of Family Medicine, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles and MGMA member, is recognized for her article: “Making it work: Process improvement in medical practices,” published in the April 2004 MGMA Connexion. Her article gives 10 steps to move an organization from a bureaucratic mindset to a quality-oriented philosophy. She describes three process-improvement models to conduct a quality improvement project: Six Sigma, the business process improvement model and SAMIE (select, analyze, measure, improve, evaluate). Her facility successfully used the SAMIE model to improve responsiveness to patients – the customers.

The award recognizes a medical practice professional who has made a substantial contribution to the body of literature to foster more effective and efficient health care delivery in the field of medical practice management.

Women’s Healthcare Associates LLC, Beaverton, Ore. – Fred Graham Award for Innovation in Improving Community Health

 Women’s Healthcare Associates LLC (WHA), Beaverton, Ore., a 45-clinician obstetrics and gynecology practice in the suburbs of Portland, Ore., works in partnership with Providence St. Vincent Hospital to provide prenatal and obstetrical services to pregnant undocumented and uninsured workers, most of them Hispanic. Because of this program and the work of other committed organizations, nearly 78 percent of pregnant Hispanic women in Washington County receive care in the first trimester, compared with 65 percent of Hispanic women statewide.

The Fred Graham Award for Innovation in Improving Community Health is sponsored by Pfizer Medical Humanities Initiative. It is the highest form of recognition given to a medical group practice led by an MGMA or ACMPE member that has developed innovative solutions to advance the effectiveness of health care delivery and improve community health. The honoree this year receives a $10,000 award to further the work for which it has been honored.

  “These outstanding award recipients help define our profession and push us to seek higher levels of success in medical practice management,” said William F. Jessee, MD, FACMPE, MGMA and ACMPE president and CEO. “We deeply appreciate their contributions to quality health care delivery and through their leadership, hope to further codify the value of medical practice management.”

Source: American College of Medical Practice Executives (ACMPE)