In 1965, President Johnson signed legislation to establish Medicare for the elderly and Medicaid for low-income adults, children, pregnant women, and people with disabilities. Since then, these programs have transformed the delivery of health care in the United States. They have greatly reduced the number of uninsured Americans and have become the standard bearers for… Continue Reading
August Quality Improvement Webinar Announced
You’re invited! The QIO Program is launching a new learning series that offers health care providers nationwide the opportunity to participate in virtual training events focused on health care quality improvement. The series, titled “Sharing Knowledge, Improving Health Care,” will feature training sessions led by recognized experts and thought leaders and will address hot topics… Continue Reading
Federal Report Isolates Quality Innovation
A report produced this spring by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), offers significant national findings: for 2011 to 2014, state-based, Medicare-funded Quality Improvement Organizations (QIOs) are credited with helping providers avoid a potential 44,640 adverse drug events; with undertaking community-based approaches to care coordination in ways that saved nearly $1 billion; and… Continue Reading
Panel Seeks Unified Performance Reporting System
An expert panel convened by the Washington DC-based Institute of Medicine is calling for a radically streamlined approach to healthcare performance measurement. Noting that health systems now often require 50 to 100 full-time employees at costs of $3.5 million to $12 million annually to comply with a wide range of competing reporting requirements, the panel… Continue Reading
New NY Law Protects Patients from Surprise Billings
IPRO and two other organizations have been authorized to adjudicate disputes that arise from billings for services provided by out-of-network providers. Effective April 1, patients in New York are protected from surprise billings in excess of network charges from out-of-network providers that take place in the absence of a written acknowledgements from patients authorizing out-of-network… Continue Reading
IPRO Recruits Nursing Home Champions
A key facet of IPRO’s five-year regional Quality Innovation Network-Quality Improvement Organization (QIN-QIO) contract requires the organization to recruit leading New York-based nursing homes to act as “peer coaches” for other facilities that participate in IPRO’s nursing home quality care collaborative. The goal is to provide best practice support for other nursing homes over the… Continue Reading
Value-Based Purchasing Is More than a Concept
Recent events suggest that value-based purchasing is quickly evolving from a concept to a living reality. In April, after surprisingly little public debate, an otherwise highly-divided Congress agreed to replace the sustainable growth rate (SGR) approach to updating Medicare payments with a system that will explicitly tie annual increases to practitioners’ ability to meet or… Continue Reading
Authors Document Primary Care Impact
Authors at the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) and IPRO have collaborated on an article that examines a three-year $250 million pilot aimed at improving primary care in teaching hospital outpatient departments and other settings. Under the federally-funded pilot that concluded last December, approximately 5,000 physician-in-training were educated on the patient-centered medical home… Continue Reading
IPRO’s 31st Annual Meeting Set for June 2
Helen Burstin, MD, MPH, FACP, Chief Scientific Officer of The National Quality Forum, and Rahul Rajkumar, MD, JD, Acting Deputy Director of the U.S. Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMS), are the featured speakers at IPRO’s 31st Annual Membership Meeting, to be held Tuesday, June 2, 2015 at the LaGuardia Airport Marriott Hotel in… Continue Reading
Save The Date
IPRO’s Annual Meeting is scheduled for Tuesday June 2 at the LaGuardia Marriott Hotel in East Elmhurst, NY. The event includes a complimentary buffet and presentations by leading figures in healthcare quality improvement. For advance registration, contact Joan Ragone at IPRO’s Lake Success Office (516) 326-7767, ext 262 or e-mail her at jragone@ipro.org.