Issue 57 | January 3, 2024

News, Resources and Events for QIO Program Contractors

Supporting Health Equity

This issue of the QI Times shares a variety of resources for Quality Improvement Organization (QIO) Program care settings to help our providers and partners support health equity. Listen to Health Equity and CLAS Implementation, a presentation from Great Plains QIN, as they share their approach to expanding organizational knowledge of culturally and linguistically appropriate services (CLAS) standards through community engagement. Alliant Health Solutions partnered with other HQICs to develop the presentation, "I Want to, I Just Don't Know How": A Practical Guide to Advancing Health Equity that describes how health equity strategies may be embedded within all quality measures. Best Practices in Health Equity: Advice from Peer Hospitals from Health Quality Innovators offers recommendations for data collection and analysis, communicating findings, and creating an infrastructure that supports equitable care.

Looking Ahead: Reducing Health-Care Associated Infections. Submit tools, resources, events and trainings for the next issue by January 31. Check out the complete QI Times editorial calendar on QIOProgram.org.

Remember to sign into Quality Co-Op, the members-only area of QIOProgram.org, for the latest resources on this and many other health care quality improvement topics. Not a member yet? Sign up here.

HQI Helps Nursing Home Successfully Implement Motivational Interviewing to Address Vaccine Hesitancy

Learn how HQI trained staff in motivational interviewing at a Missouri nursing facility to help overcome vaccine hesitancy among the residents' guardians. Thanks to this training, the facility increased its resident vaccination rate by nearly 40 percent.

Alliant Health Solutions’ Beneficiary & Family Advisory Council Empowers People with Medicare and Their Caregivers Through Informed Healthcare Decision-Making

Read how Alliant Health Solutions' Beneficiary & Family Advisory Council (BFAC) has played a significant role in the organization's mission to make health care more accessible for people with Medicare.

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SEARCH: Health Equity

Health Equity and CLAS Implementation

Listen to Great Plains QIN as they share their immersive learning experience, discoveries made during facilitated learning sessions, and how the QIN-QIO serves as a conduit for exchanging key information between partners as they implement national CLAS standards.

"I Want To, I Just Don't Know How": A Practical Guide to Advancing Health Equity

Get inspired by this recorded session developed by Alliant Health Solutions in partnership with other HQICs with actionable examples of successful health equity projects implemented within hospital settings.

Best Practices in Health Equity: Advice from Peer Hospitals

Hospitals can use this resource from Health Quality Innovators (HQI) to learn how other hospitals have approached health equity data collection and analysis, communicated findings, and created an infrastructure that supports equitable care.

Addressing Health Disparities Resource Guide

This resource guide from Telligen includes tools and resources that help hospitals assess and improve their data collection, validation, and stratification activities associated with health equity; communicate findings throughout the organization and community; and provision resources to address and resolve gaps in care.

Please continue to login to Quality Co-Op to submit your events, tools and resources for publication. Not a member of Quality Co-Op? Register here.

CMS Finalizes Physician Payment Rule that Advances Health Equity

Partnerships for Community Health will want to review the CMS 2024 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) final rule, which now provides for payment of care coordination and navigation services and risk assessments for social determinants of health. These services may include person-centered planning, health system coordination, and facilitating access to community-based resources to address unmet social needs that interfere with diagnosis and treatment.

Rural Healthcare Provider Transition Project Health Education and Learning Program (HELP) Webinar: Creating a Health Equity Culture - Tools and Resources to Support Rural Health Care Leaders

Join the National Rural Health Resource Center at 1 p.m. ET on February 14, 2024, for an introduction to new tools and resources that rural health care leaders are using to support health equity in their communities. Register here. Can't make it? Check out the HELP library of past events.

Health Coverage Among American Indian and Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander People

Interested in learning more about the health care disparities faced by American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander (NHOPI) people served by the AIANHQI task order? This KFF article organizes demographic data gathered from the 2017-2021 American Community Survey (ACS) and its impacts on health care access for people who identify as AIAN or NHOPI.

How the Health Care C-Suite is Thinking About Health Equity

Deloitte surveyed C-suite executives from health care and life science companies to learn how they are evaluating health equity initiatives as tools to improve recruitment, retention, and operations. Read this white paper to see how your HQIC's health equity training and recommendations align with 2024 priorities.

National Poverty in America Awareness Month

During January, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Office of Minority Health (CMS OMH) recognizes National Poverty in America Awareness Month. National Poverty in America Awareness Month is an opportunity to bring attention to people living in impoverished communities who often have reduced access to stable housing, healthy foods and access to health care.

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HQIC Community of Practice Call

Reducing Opioid Misuse: Leveraging Alternative Pain Management Therapies

January 11, 2024 | 1:00 - 2:00 p.m. ET

Please join us for a special Community of Practice Event open to all QIO program task orders. Speakers will include Dr. Roger Liu, CMS, Jennifer Brockman and Dr. Susan Bradley from the Iowa Healthcare Collaborative’s (IHC) Task Order 5 Opioid Prescriber Safety and Support Program. This event will feature alternative pain management therapies used to reduce opioid-related harms that can be implemented across health care settings. All quality improvement leaders across task orders who are working on opioids, opioid use disorder, and pain are encouraged to attend. See more and register!

CMS Health Equity Conference

Save the Date

May 29-30, 2024

Requests for proposals will open in January 2024, with conference registration available in Spring 2024.

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Have you developed QIO Program resources or organized an event you'd like to share? Please submit Tools and Resources or Training and Events for consideration by 8:00 a.m. ET the Wednesday before publication of each issue.

The DVA values your feedback. Let us know what you think!

This material was prepared by The Bizzell Group (Bizzell), the Data Validation and Administrative (DVA) contractor, under contract with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Views expressed in this material do not necessarily reflect the official views or policy of CMS or HHS, and any reference to a specific product or entity herein does not constitute endorsement of that product or entity by CMS or HHS. 12SOW/Bizzell/DVA-1261-12/18/23