Recent enhancements in healthcare quality for New York’s Medicare beneficiaries are detailed in IPRO’s new Medicare Quality Improvement Report. The report covers clinical areas in which the state’s healthcare providers worked with IPRO over a three-year period that ended July 31, 2014. One major area of IPRO’s focus has been in working with New York hospitals to reduce the rates of healthcare-acquired infections – acute care facilities working with IPRO reduced central-line associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs) by 62%. While re-measurement is still underway on another measure – reductions in Clostridium difficile infections (CDIs) – hospitals working with IPRO have already achieved a 21.5% improvement rate. IPRO worked with the state’s nursing homes to reduce the incidence of pressure ulcers and the use of physical restraints. Pressure ulcer incidence has dropped from 14.65% to 10.45%, a relative improvement of 28.65%. Physical restraint usage dropped from 6.14% to 1.86%, a relative improvement of 69.68%. In order to improve transitions of care between healthcare settings and prevent rehospitalizations, IPRO led the development of and assisted twenty Care Transitions community coalitions across the state, working intensively with two of these coalitions. IPRO helped achieve 30% to 40% relative reductions in rehospitalization rates in these two communities, and saw an average 19% relative improvement rate for all 20 communities. “These improvements show that, with the support of organizational leadership and a collaborative team effort, healthcare providers can achieve real improvements that benefit patients,” said Clare B. Bradley MD, MPH, IPRO’s Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer. “We are proud to have helped facilitate these improvements.” Although most of its QIO efforts have been directed at healthcare professionals, IPRO has also helped Medicare beneficiaries and their families better manage their care. Expanding on a successful pilot project, IPRO partnered with community-based organizations in New York City to bring diabetes self-management education workshops to 3,000 Latino beneficiaries who have diabetes. IPRO is on track to graduate 2,500 from the evidence-based program. IPRO also used a “train the trainer” model to provide culturally and linguistically appropriate self-management education for caregivers of Latino New Yorkers who have Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. In addition, IPRO implemented a pilot hypertension self-management program. For a copy of IPRO’s entire report, Raising the Bar: IPRO’s Medicare Quality Improvement Report for New York State (2011–2014), visit ipro.org or call Joan Ragone at (516) 326-7767, ext. 262.