Gagon Family Medicine Presented with HealthInsight Award

Gagon Family Medicine was one of only 76 medical practices in Utah to receive the 2019 HealthInsight Quality Award. 

Special recognition was given to Gagon Family Medicine on Wednesday afternoon as the entire staff was presented with HealthInsight’s High-Performance Award.

For 2018, HealthInsight recognized 76 outpatient medical practices throughout Utah for their commitment to improving performance and promoting patient-centered care. HealthInsight’s Quality Award Program acknowledges high-performing health care provider organizations in each state in which HealthInsight serves as the Medicare program’s Quality Innovation Network-Quality Improvement Organization (QIN-QIO) contractor.

While many practices throughout the Wasatch Front and Southern Utah received recognition, Gagon Family Medicine was the only local award recipient. This is the second consecutive year that the practice has received the award.

According to HealthInsight, the Quality Award Program was launched in September 2004 to promote transparency in health care. By using publicly-available quality data to identify high-performing providers and publicizing the results, HealthInsight aims to help providers improve health care and help patients become more active and informed participants in the own care.

“In 2009, we began recognizing physician office practices for effective use of health information technology, patient care management practices and exemplary performance on nationally-recognized quality of care measures,” said Sandra DeBry to the Gagon Family Medicine staff during the award presentation. “The high performance award, which you are getting, the highest of the high, recognizes practices that have achieved above the 75th percentile on benchmarks on at least six quality measures or patient experience measures.”

To qualify for the award, practices must submit publicly-available measures along with a description of how the practice has achieved the score.

“Just getting the quality to the level that you have it at takes a ton of work. Then, submitting an application that says you’ve done all those things and collecting the data is a lot of work,” DeBry said.

An entire team reviews the submitted applications and notes specific items that stand out. DeBry explained that one of the most notable aspects of Gagon Family Medicine is the abundance of praiseworthy statements submitted by patients. Some such statements included a patient who drives two hours to see the team at Gagon Family Medicine while others praised a courteous and knowledgable staff.

“Your patients clearly love you,” said DeBry.

Gina Gagon then took the floor following DeBry’s presentation to praise the entire staff of Gagon Family Medicine.

“Every single one of you contributes to the results that we’ve achieved. So, I hope you understand that we recognize that and we really appreciate the role that you all play and the effort that you put into it,” said Gagon.