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The Maryland-Virginia Nursing Home Improvement Network Better care. Better outcomes. Lower costs. Difficult challenge, easy solution. Every nursing home wants to provide excellent resident care, 100% of the time. Then reality enters the picture: staff turnover, tight budgets and increased expectations from families and regulators. Yet some facilities post consistently high quality scores. How do they do it? That is exactly what you will learn when you join the Maryland-Virginia Nursing Home Improvement Network. VHQC is bringing together nursing home leaders like you from across the region to tackle the toughest quality challenges, using strategies and tactics that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) gathered from the nation’s top nursing homes. Working collaboratively, you will get the support and encouragement you need to: 1. Develop and implement a Quality Assurance Performance Improvement (QAPI) plan 2. Strengthen survey processes and standards 3. Increase resident satisfaction, as well as resident and family engagement 4. Improve clinical processes and resident outcomes for multiple areas of care In addition, your facility can choose to make system-level improvements in areas like staff stability and consistent assignments, team building, finance and leadership. Valuable benefits. When you participate, you will have access to colleagues who have surmounted the challenges you face, including high-performing Maryland and Virginia facilities that will serve as peer mentors. This comprehensive, no-cost initiative includes additional benefits, such as: Well-aligned goals. The Network targets priorities that are important to your facility and its residents. These goals also align with QAPI, Advancing Excellence and related programs to support your progress in: 1. Improving the mobility of long-stay residents 2. Reducing the unnecessary use of antipsychotic medications 3. Preventing healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) and other healthcare-acquired conditions (HACs), like falls and pressure ulcers 4. Decreasing potentially avoidable hospitalizations 5. Achieving a score of six or better on the Nursing Home Quality Composite Score, a comprehensive measure of clinical performance 1. Telephonic and email consultation with VHQC quality improvement experts Simple requirements. We Network make participation easy and Maryland & Virginia Quality Innovation 2. A 24/7 online community of supportive colleagues who flexible because we designed improvement activities to are willing to share their experiences and knowledge fit into the real world of delivering healthcare. Our expert 3. Tools and resources based on scientific evidence and the staff are just a phone call or email away when you need best clinical, management and leadership practices of help. Here are the basic steps that you will need to follow high-performing nursing homes in order to see results: Maryland & Virginia Quality Innovation Network 1. Complete the Quality Assurance and Performance Improvement (QAPI) self-assessment and update annually 2. Sign up for the Advancing Excellence campaign and give VHQC permission to view your facility’s data Fast Facts How long does the network last? January 2014 – July 2019 What topics are included? 3. Form an interdisciplinary improvement team that includes senior leaders and front-line staff Antipsychotic medications, infections, resident mobility, 4. Have at least one team member participate in scheduled events, such as educational webinars or teleconferences topics, such as staff stability, teambuilding and finance. 5. Implement proven methods for improving quality, measure your results, and adjust your approach as needed, following the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle 6. Share your best practices and lessons learned with other Maryland and Virginia nursing homes pressure ulcers and avoidable hospitalizations. Leadership How does this align with other nursing home improvement efforts? Your participation aligns with your commitment to Advancing Excellence and can help you meet your organization’s quality improvement goals and comply with CMS’ QAPI requirement. Who should participate? Nursing home administrators, medical directors, directors Proven effectiveness. Your investment of time and effort in the Maryland-Virginia Nursing Home Improvement Network is a sound one, because the network is based on a similar, highly productive collaborative that VHQC convened in Virginia from 2012 to 2014. Here is what one facility has to say about the value of our initiatives: of nursing, nurse managers, other front-line patient care staff. Residents and families have important insights to contribute, as do associations that represent nursing homes or advocate for residents. “We have been successful as a result of our participation in VHQC’s pressure ulcer project. It widened our focus on existing issues and brought attention to areas where we could improve. The tools VHQC provided were a great help.” – Dr. James Abbott, Medical Director, The Virginia Home Overall, the nearly 100 nursing homes participating in the 2012-2014 improvement collaborative achieved an overall 6% improvement compared to their baseline performance in multiple areas of patient care. In addition, those focused on reducing inappropriate antipsychotic use achieved a 15% improvement from baseline. Get Started. If you took part in the previous nursing home collaborative, we hope you will continue your participation and progress—and if you are new to the world of quality improvement, we are eager to welcome you. The first step is signing and returning the Nursing Home Network participation agreement, which is posted on our website, www.vhqc.org. Questions? Contact Sheila McLean, LNHA, MBA, CPHQ, at 804.289.5320 or [email protected]. About VHQC. As the Quality Innovation Network Quality Improvement Organization (QIN-QIO) for Maryland and Virginia, VHQC convenes patients, providers and stakeholders to rapidly improve health quality and achieve better health, better care and lower costs. We do this work through CMS’ QIO Program, the cornerstone of Medicare’s efforts to improve the quality and value of health care for its more than 45 million beneficiaries. VHQC has served as Virginia’s QIO for 30 years, and has held multiple national CMS quality improvement contracts. We also serve as Virginia’s Health IT Regional Extension Center, helping providers achieve meaningful use of their electronic health records. For additional information, visit us at www.vhqc.org. This material was prepared by VHQC, the Medicare Quality Innovation Network Quality Improvement Organization for Maryland and Virginia, under contract with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The contents presented do not necessarily reflect CMS policy. VHQC/11SOW/9/4/2014/1984