"I love it when patients come in and they bring their list of questions, or they ask me ‘Should I have this test?’ or ‘Why are we doing this?’ That makes the relationship, that makes managing this chronic problem together, a lot better."

‒ Dr. E. Harry Walker
MetroHealth Center for Community Health

Did You Know?

As many as one of every three people with diabetes don’t know they have it.

In the News

Going Digital

Pamela B. Davis, MD, PhD

Medicus, CWRU School of Medicine - Summer 2010

Like many of you, I daily receive far more pieces of mail than I can begin to review as thoroughly as I would like, Too often I just skim and stack, skim and stack, trying to separate the urgent from the important from the 'wait until next week.' I was recently amid this task when a report from Better Health Greater Cleveland made me stop and stare....Read more.

Electronic health records help Northeast Ohio docs improve care

Mary Vanac

MedCityNews.com - June 29, 2010

Healthcare providers who participate in Better Health Greater Cleveland continued to improve the quality of care they provide patients with common chronic conditions last year — thanks, in part, to electronic medical records. Later this year, doctors’ offices and hospitals will begin receiving more than $20 billion in federal and state stimulus money when they adopt electronic medical record technologies. Read more.

Measurement Matters: Public Reporting to Shine a Light on Regional Disparities

Randall D. Cebul, M.D.

Brookings Institution Conference - March 25, 2010

Randall D. Cebul, MD, director of Better Health Greater Cleveland, highlighted Better Health’s achievements and continued challenges in eliminating disparities among those with fewer resources in Greater Cleveland at a Brookings Institution conference in Washington, D.C., on March 25, 2010. The conference focused on improving data collection, measurement and reporting to achieve health equity featured. Read the presentation here.

Dr. Cebul speaks at Brookings Institution

Dr. Cebul speaks at Brookings Institution

Stimulus to fuel Ohio's e-health record push

Chuck Soder

Crain's Cleveland Business - March 8, 2010

Providers seek better care by sharing information

First, hospitals and doctors must adopt electronic medical records. Then, they have to share them.

The $43 million in federal stimulus money that the Ohio Health Information Partnership was awarded last month should help the state start down the path to achieving those two goals, which the federal government set in 2004 in an effort to improve medical care and lower costs.

Read the story and learn more about Better Health's potential role.

Greater Cleveland diabetes patients show improvements in treating the disease, but insurance cuts threaten progress

Harlan Spector

The Plain Dealer - June 25, 2009

Greater Cleveland diabetes patients are showing health improvements in areas such as blood sugar control, but the gains are threatened by a growing number of people losing insurance coverage. A nonprofit collaborative called Better Health Greater Cleveland began examining medical records of more than 25,000 diabetes patients in 2007. The program is the first large-scale effort locally to report on how patients and their doctors are managing the chronic disease.
Read full story.

Harvard economist: Getting health care coverage for most people is pretty easy

Mary Vanac

MedCityNews.com - June 25, 2009

CLEVELAND, Ohio – It’s not difficult to get most Americans health-care coverage. If you make it accessible and affordable most people will buy it, says Harvard University economics professor David Cutler.

How do you make health care affordable? Remove some of the inefficiencies of delivering and coordinating medical care, which drive up its cost and drive down its quality, Cutler told an audience of health care providers, administrators and advocates Thursday at the Cleveland Botanical Gardens.

The audience was assembled to hear about Better Health Greater Cleveland’s third community checkup report — an assessment of the non-profit organization’s progress toward collecting and analyzing care quality measures of how 361 primary care physicians in Northeast Ohio managed the health of their 25,724 diabetic patients.

Read the full story.

Better Health Director receives Saltzman Award

The MetroHealth System News Release - June 15, 2009

Better Health Director Randall Cebul, MD, a MetroHealth internal medicine physician and director of the Case Western Reserve University Center for Health Care Research and Policy at MetroHealth, was presented with the Mt. Sinai Health Care Foundation’s prestigious Maurice Saltzman Award for 2009. Dr. Cebul was recognized at the Foundation’s annual meeting on June 15 for his efforts in establishing and leading Better Health Greater Cleveland, a community-wide collaboration of those who get care, give care and pay for care that is dedicated to improving the health and value of health care for people in Northeast Ohio with chronic medical conditions.

The Hon.Dan A. Polster, chair of the award selection committee, said the award has become one of the most prestigious honors in Cleveland, which made the selection process both a privilege and a challenge. “As director of the Better Health Greater Cleveland initiative, Dr. Cebul has brought together community-wide stakeholders from all facets of the health care industry to address chronic illnesses in a manner never before attempted,” said Polster. “Because of his leadership, Greater Cleveland now has the infrastructure necessary to change the quality of care and reduce the economic and personal burden of chronic disease. His uncompromising drive for high-quality care and measurable outcomes has helped his colleagues move the needle toward better care and better outcomes for 25,000 patients currently served by this initiative.”

Dr. Cebul said he was “tremendously honored and thankful to the Mt. Sinai Health Care Foundation,” but the award was “not about me.” He said it was about themes that are playing out nationally in the dialogue about health care reform, including improving access to care for those who are disadvantaged, improving health outcomes and reducing costs of care for those with chronic conditions, and about the intelligent use of health information technology to monitor, coordinate and improve care. But mostly, he said, it was about building effective partnerships of leaders in primary care across the region.

The award was established in 1983 to honor the late Maurice Saltzman, who was involved in human service causes for more than 30 years and demonstrated a special interest in health, medicine and collaboration.

Doctors, patients doing better at managing diabetes

Harlan Spector

The Plain Dealer - January 27, 2009

Better Health Greater Cleveland, a health-quality group that began examining care for Cleveland-area diabetes patients in 2007, says in its latest report that doctors and patients are doing slightly better at managing the chronic disease. Read the full story.

Diabetes treatment in Cleveland better, but still needs improvement

Shannon Mortland

Crain's Cleveland Business - January 27, 2009

While local health care providers have made progress in treating some patients with diabetes, they still have a long way to go, according to the latest report from Better Health Greater Cleveland. Read the full story.

Managing Your Health: Diabetes

Maureen Kyle

- November 19, 2008

read the story

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