CMSHealthDisparitie

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Quality Improvement Organization (QIO) Program consists of a national network of 53 QIOs, one for each of the 50 United States (U.S.), the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.  QIOs work with health care providers, consumers and stakeholder groups to refine care delivery systems to make sure patients get the right care at the right time, particularly, patients from priority (priority) populations.  QIOs operate under three-year contracts.   The 9th Statement of Work (SOW) began on August 2008 and continues through July 2011.  For more information:  www.cms.hhs.gov/QualityImprovementOrgs.

QIO Activities under the Patient Safety Theme focus on six primary tasks:

The Patient Safety Theme work is to promote two priorities:

The Patient Safety Theme addresses health disparities through tasks related to care of nursing home residents in the core contract.  QIOs working in either of two components, reduction of PrUs or reduction in use of physical restraints in nursing homes are required to conduct a study of disparities among that State’s nursing home population.  Reports addressing health care disparities will reflect consideration of factors and issues unique to each QIO’s nursing home population and will include approaches for correcting these disparities and tracking related progress.
The Patient Safety Theme (National Patient Safety Initiative [NPSI]) requirements are designed to address areas of patient harm for which there is evidence of how to improve safety by improving health care processes and systems.  The Patient Safety Theme gives providers and QIOs the chance to broaden the scope of their patient safety-related improvement activities.  QIOs activities under the NPSI support the development of an “all-teach, all-learn” community-in-action to meet the goals within each component of the initiative.  

“Representatives from each QIO serve as National Quality Improvement Leaders (NQIL).  These individuals serve as liaisons between CMS and the work that is occurring at the patient care-level in each state/jurisdiction.  They network with health care executives in their respective states/jurisdictions to highlight the work occurring at the national level in their provider groups.  The NQILs come together to share practices that are proving to be successful at the local level.  As successful tools and practices are developed, QIOs will share these with one another for implementation in other QIO communities.

Patient Safety:  9th SoW Measure Level (14 measures)