April is National Donate Life Month

Celebrated in April each year, National Donate Life Month (NDLM) features an entire month of local, regional and national activities to help encourage Americans to register as organ, eye and tissue donors and to celebrate those that have saved lives through the gift of donation.

To learn more about NDLM, and how you can promote donation, visit  https://www.donatelife.net/ndlm/ .

Here are some important facts about donation for you to keep in mind from the 2016 Donate Life America Donor Designation Report and the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN):

Click here for more information about donation and transplantation statistics. 

To register your decision to save and heal lives, visit  https://registerme.org/ .

Help Us Improve Provider Insider

IPRO ESRD Network Programs are always working to find effective ways to educate and update the renal community about end-stage renal disease and relevant topics. We would like to assess the value of the content shared in Provider Insider, our professional newsletter sent to the ESRD healthcare community.

 

Your feedback is vital for helping us ensure that the needs of the community are being met by providing appropriate and useful content in each issue.

 

Please take a moment to complete a SHORT questionnaire by clicking the link below. This survey will close on April 30, 2018.

The In-Center Hemodialysis Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (ICH CAHPS) is a national, standardized, and publicly-reported survey of patients' perspectives of dialysis care. ICH CAHPS measures the perceptions of patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) who are receiving in-center hemodialysis care.

 

Questions in the ICH CAHPS survey components capture patients’ perceptions of nephrologists' communication and caring, staff communication and caring, operations of the dialysis facility, and the facility’s handling of patients’ problems. The survey also includes questions to determine, patients’ knowledge of treatment options, and satisfaction with grievance management.

The survey can be administered in one of three ways: mail only, telephone only, and mixed (mail followed by telephone). Even though ESRD patients spend a number of hours each week at their dialysis facilities, to avoid any bias in responses the survey may not be administered by any facility staff person and may not be administered in the dialysis facility. Surveys are conducted two times per year: in the spring and the fall. All dialysis facilities that treat more than 30 adult patients in a year are required by Medicare to have their patients surveyed.

               

As part of your patients’ ESRD healthcare team CMS encourages you and other members of the dialysis facility team to focus on the patient experience of care and on ways that they can improve overall quality of life for patients. The ICH CAHPS assessment provides an opportunity for patients’ to express their perspective about the care they receive. ICH CAHPS results are used by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Service (CMS) to determine reimbursements to facilities under the ESRD Quality Incentive Program (QIP). Results are also used to score facilities, using a five star rating system in Dialysis Facility Compare (DFC), to help patients select a facility that is right for them.

For additional information on ICH CAHPS please visit:

The International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM) USA Healthcare Caucus has announced its second webinar in partnership with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on the Emergency Preparedness Final Rule. The webinar will be held on Tuesday, April 24, 2018 from 1pm to 2pm, EST .

Please join Caecilia (Cece) Blondiaux with the Quality, Safety & Oversight Group (QSOG). Ms. Blondiaux will provide a recap and updates on the final rule. She will also highlight and discuss key areas in which CMS is seeing an increased number of deficiencies as related to the final rule. There will be approximately 20-25 minutes allotted for a question and answer session at the end of the webinar. For efficiency and to answer as many questions as possible, IAEM requests that questions be submitted in advance to [email protected] , no later than April 16, 2018.

Patient Experience (PX) Week   is an annual event established by The Beryl Institute

to honor individuals responsible for providing patient care. PX Week provides a focused time for organizations to celebrate accomplishments, re-energize efforts and honor the people who impact patient experience every day.   The Beryl Institute is a global community of practice dedicated to improving the patient experience through collaboration and shared knowledge.

According to the Institute, “Improving health outcomes for patients starts on the front line with doctors, nurses, administrative staff, and executive team members.” Research has shown that better patient experiences can impact the level of patient engagement, and patients who are active members in their healthcare achieve better clinical outcomes. 

For more information on Patient Experience Week, click  here .

 

The IPRO ESRD Network program provides technical assistance to facilities in multiple ways including education and resources to support patient engagement at the facility level. One way the Network encourages patient engagement is through the assistance we offer to local facilities in implementing or learning more about available peer mentorship/ambassador programs.

 

According to an article published in 2015, "Potential Impact of Peer Mentoring on Treatment Choice in Patients with Chronic Kidney Disease: A Review," written by Nasrollah Ghahramani MD, FACP, FASN, peer to peer programs have shown to help patients become more involved in their health care. Patients who work with a peer as a mentor are able to make more informed decisions about their dialysis treatment options and are better informed about transplant processes. Being informed about health care decisions by peers with shared experiences can build self-confidence which then leads to overall better health outcomes.

To read more about Ghahramani's findings, click  here .

To learn more about patient programs offered by your Network or local agencies, contact your ESRD Patient Services Department. Our Patient Services Team is here to assist with resources on the benefits of implementing patient peer programs or other patient support programming at your facility.

Please visit our website: ­

http://network1.esrd.ipro.org/home/patient-and-family-resources/kidney-community/patient-advisory-committe-pac/ .

In an effort to provide more comprehensive support with the hopes of improving overall data quality, the Network began using Freshdesk, a web-based ticket management and knowledgebase application. It has up-to-date articles, links, and visual aids for CROWNWeb, NHSN, the Quality Incentive Program (QIP) and Dialysisdata.org in one place. Information is provided in the easy-to-use and searchable knowledgebase. Freshdesk provides a platform to submit questions via the portal or email. Network staff will respond by email, phone or WebEx. Please send an email to  [email protected]  or go to  https://ipro.freshdesk.com/support/login .