Florida Public Health Institute and HealthMETRICS Join Forces to Enhance the Quality, Efficiency and Effectiveness of Public Healthcare Services across Florida Lake Worth, Florida

(March 3, 2010) – The Florida Public Health Institute (FPHI), under the Executive leadership of Dr. Earl Fox, formerly of HRSA in Washington, D.C., has entered into a partnership with HealthMETRICS Partners from Massachusetts to provide Public Health managers with the information they need to maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of the medical services they offer.

Highlands County Health Department under the direction of Robert Palussek is the first county to participate in this new initiative. According to Mr. Palussek “This partnership will allow us to focus upon performance optimization within our direct services. I am convinced it will give us a better understanding of our clinical operations, which will help us to make better decisions, and enable us to provide excellent care to more patients with our limited funding.”

Per Fox, the FPHI has teamed up with HealthMETRICS Partners from Massachusetts to provide their services to Public Health managers “because of their excellent track record in improving costs and healthcare outcomes.” He further added that “the role of FPHI will be to develop education and training programs to support these projects, identify local experts and use the data to identify ways to improve state regulations and policies that govern the delivery of medical services”

Mr. Michael Napier, the Administrator of Seminole County Health Department and President elect of the Florida Association of County Health Officers stated that: “As steward of the Public Health System that utilizes taxpayer’s dollars we have an obligation to adopt best practices to achieve outcome optimization in the care we provide. Like every business public or private we are always looking for ways to lower costs and simultaneously improve the quality of service. Our goal of improving our community’s health will be a step closer in Florida with the FPHI/HealthMETRICS partnership.”