HealthTeamWorks began in 1996 under the name Colorado Clinical Guidelines Collaborative (CCGC). Its original goal was to address the multiple and often conflicting clinical guidelines issued by health plans, medical societies and government and private agencies, and develop consensus to support one guideline per condition. At that time, clinicians often ignored or discarded guidelines because they weren't clear, consistent or easy to use.  
 
HealthTeamWorks has always emphasized collaboration. We have successfully convened competitors to work together toward common goals for the benefit of the community. Members of several rival health plans sit on our board and participate as members and strategic partners. We benefit from relationships and strategic partnerships that drive our mission and set an example for other states. HealthTeamWorks has accomplished objectives many would deem impossible in the competitive healthcare industry by seeking cooperation among many entities.

Clinical guidelines remain the foundation of our work. However, we know that to achieve the mission of improving health and healthcare, we also need to provide support services to implement and measure guideline-based care. 

Today HealthTeamWorks boasts an inventory of healthcare guidelines, developed with a standardized process that incorporates clinical expertise, consensus-building and a focus-group process to make the resources relevant and usable in practice. In 2005, we were selected as the lead agency for Colorado to pilot the national Improving Performance in Practice (IPIP), an evidence-based practice transformation program now called Patient-Centered Medical Home Foundations (PCMH Foundations). We worked with the national IPIP team and North Carolina, the other pilot state, to define the scope and structure of the now national IPIP program.

These experiences helped prepare HealthTeamWorks to expand its scope. In 2009, we launched the Multi-State, Multi-Stakeholder Patient Centered Medical Home Pilot in Colorado, and will oversee it until the program's end in 2012. In May 2010 we changed our name to HealthTeamWorks to reflect our larger purpose and mission. In addition to developing clinical guidelines, HealthTeamWorks facilitates the development of patient-centered medical homes, assists practices in selecting, implementing and using electronic health records and trains coaches in creating medical homes in their organizations.

HealthTeamWorks' breadth of experience includes:

• Providing practice transformation coaching for five years to more than 200 practices with 1,000 providers, in the Patient Centered Medical Home Foundations program (formerly Improving Performance in Practice – IPIP) 
• Participating with six other state-level entities to form a CORHIO-led Regional Extension Center (CO-REC) to assist providers across the state in securing, implementing and achieving meaningful use of electronic health records
• Contracting with the Colorado Beacon Consortium to use HealthTeamWorks’ Systems Transformation program as the foundation for community transformation
• Providing practice transformation services to four Regional Accountable Care Organizations in the Colorado Medicaid Regional Care Collaborative Organization programs

We serve on national task forces and committees, including: 

•  Office of the National Coordinator task force to develop electronic tools for
   achievement of meaningful use
•  NCQA physician advisory committee for the Patient-Centered Medical Home
•  Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative (PCPCC) task forces on Compensation Reform, Mental Health Integration and Multi-Payer Demonstration Pilots