Albany-area hospitals, nursing homes and home health agencies that worked collaboratively with IPRO on improving transitions of care were able to show statistically significant reductions in 30-day rehospitalizations and all hospitalizations for Medicare beneficiaries. Study results appeared in the January 23, 2013 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). The communities working… Continue Reading
IPRO Awarded Three ESRD Network Contracts
IPRO has been awarded three major federal contracts to support the provision of End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) services to Medicare beneficiaries. All three-year awards assist dialysis and renal transplantation centers in maintaining high standards of care for ESRD patients. The contracts are administered by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and are effective… Continue Reading
IPRO Focusing on Albany Area Long-Term Care
IPRO will work with a broad range of stakeholders in the greater Albany area to investigate variations in cost, quality and utilization of long term care, with the goal of developing best practice interventions to improve service delivery. Under this one-year Special Innovation Project funded by CMS, IPRO will collaborate with advocates, providers, civic leaders,… Continue Reading
Rule Includes Major Changes to QIO Program
The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has made a number of important changes to the way Quality Improvement Organizations (QIOs) like IPRO handle quality of care complaints lodged by Medicare beneficiaries. The changes to QIO regulations are included in a massive final rule revising the Medicare hospital outpatient prospective payment system and… Continue Reading
Officials Foresee Improved Quality Reporting
Close attention to aligning physician quality measures, better coordination of efforts among federal agencies and deployment of interoperable electronic health records will reduce administrative burdens on physicians and increase voluntary reporting activities, according to a new article from experts at the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). The authors note that while voluntary… Continue Reading
Feds Commission MD Practice Work-Flow Analysis
Citing a lack of scientific studies analyzing the work-flow implications of electronic health record implementation at small and medium-size primary care settings, the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality is commissioning a three-year study at six clinics affiliated with Vanderbilt University Medical Center. The analysis will focus on patients with diabetes and examine the… Continue Reading
Experts Doubt Online Physician Rating Programs
Researchers say that while “crowdsourcing” techniques may be helpful in finding restaurants, the online ratings programs used to evaluate physicians have too few users to say anything meaningful about the performance of practitioners. A National Public Radio (NPR) blog posting in early January cites a recent survey of urologists conducted by The Journal of Urology;… Continue Reading
Public Reporting Brings Results—NQF
Public reporting of hospital performance data shows dramatic improvement in the number of hospitals disclosing findings and significant gains in quality of care, according to a new report from a national public-private consensus-building entity. The National Quality Forum’s (NQF’s) Annual Report to Congress notes that in 2003, only 400 hospital were reporting performance on the… Continue Reading
IOM Panel Scores Gaps in Clinical Decision-Making
Too many clinical practice guidelines are based on expert opinion, rather than clinical trials and meta-analysis, according to a new report from the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine (IOM). Findings published in late September by an expert panel indicate that in some cases half of recommendations in a clinical area are based on… Continue Reading
Proposal Ties Certification and Quality Reporting
Proposal Ties Certification and Quality Reporting Spencer Vibbert | October 15, 2012 Closer alignment between physicians’ specialty board recertification requirements and federal performance reporting activities will have a positive effect on quality improvement across the nation, according to an op-ed from two leading physician executives, published September 12th in the Journal of the American Medical… Continue Reading