From the moment that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that TMF Health Quality Institute would lead one of 14 new Quality Innovation Network Quality Improvement Organization (QIN-QIO) regions across the U.S., the TMF team has been laying the foundation and framing the structure of success for CMS' new health care initiatives.
TMF team members are not the kind to let grass grow under their feet. Quickly responding to the tasks of the five-year CMS contract, which began August 1, 2014, the team has already created a new website,
http://www.tmfqin.org, as the hub for the initiatives. They also recruited remote staff from across the region as well as participating providers, conducted kick-off webinars, formed patient and provider collaboratives to guide synergetic health care, are conducting educational webinars for the various tasks and giving direct technical assistance to specific provider organizations.
The TMF QIN-QIO region includes Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Puerto Rico and Texas. The tasks assigned to the TMF QIN-QIO include:
- Improving cardiac health and reducing cardiac health care disparities
- Reducing disparities in diabetes care
- Improving prevention efforts through meaningful use of health information technology
- Reducing infections in hospitals
- Reducing harm in nursing homes
- Assisting physicians, hospitals and other settings of care with quality reporting
- Helping communities improve the coordination of health care for patients to help reduce unnecessary hospital readmissions and adverse drug events
By the end of 2014, TMF will have conducted more than 40 educational webinars and open forum discussions related to the various health care improvement tasks. These opportunities for providers to learn and share best practices are part of the TMF QIN-QIO Learning and Action Networks found by visiting
http://www.tmfqin.org/. The networks also facilitate learning through online resources and data as well as opportunities to collaborate with peer organizations and colleagues. The networks currently have a 95 percent participation rate of registered users, compared to an 81 percent participation rate at the end of the previous contract. Providers in Puerto Rico will soon also benefit from accessing a new comparable website in which all content will be in Puerto Rican Spanish.
TMF teams also have been giving direct technical assistance related to specific tasks, such as reducing hospital readmissions, preventing heart attacks and strokes and helping physicians with health information technology. Diabetes educators have been recruited, more are scheduled for training, and they will kick off the new year with classes to educate patients in diabetes self-management skills.
Visit
www.tmfqin.org to learn about upcoming events and to see what new quality improvement resources are available. You can also follow TMF QIN-QIO via Twitter
@TMFQINQIO.