CMS www.cms.gov awarded 20 two-year Special Innovation Projects (SIPs) to 12 regional Quality Innovation Network-Quality Improvement Organizations (QIN-QIO) http://qioproram.org serving the Medicare population. The QIN-QIOs work with beneficiaries, providers, and communities in data-driven initiatives to increase patient safety.
QIOs were eligible to submit proposals for projects addressing quality issues that occur within the QIN-QIOs local service area. One of the projects awarded will enable the Health Services Advisory Group https://www.hsag.com to provide telepsychiatry in the Virgin Islands of St. Croix, St. John, and St. Thomas to help deal with the lack of psychiatric specialty services now available.
It is expected that this telepsychiatry project in the Virgin Islands will reduce the number of behavioral health admissions per 1,000 beneficiaries in hospitals and reduce emergency department visits per 1,000 beneficiaries.
The award to the Atlantic Quality Innovation Network in New York http://atlanticquality.org will work with physician offices, pharmacies, hospitals, nursing homes, and county health departments. The plan is to standardize prescribing practices so anticoagulant adverse drug events are reduced in patients including Medicare FFS beneficiaries.
This project will use mobile and web-based applications to provide clinical decision support to help hospitals, physician offices, pharmacies, nursing homes and county health departments, and ambulatory surgery settings. The plan is to also optimize patient education using health information technology.
The outcomes expected would decrease the number of surgical and invasive procedure cancellations and facility costs for anticoagulant-related issues in inpatient and ambulatory care settings. Thrombotic and bleeding events per 1,000 anticoagulated issues in Medicare FFS beneficiaries would decrease.
Another award to Health Insight https://healthinsight.org is going to demonstrate the effectiveness of the Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes (ECHO) http://echo.unm/edu model. The goal is to improve patient flow in 50 rural primary care offices across New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, and Oregon.
The Mountain Pacific Quality Health Foundation’s http://mpghf.com award will also seek to improve care transitions in rural communities using the ECHO model. The concentration will be to help vulnerable populations such as beneficiaries with multiple chronic conditions.
These chronic conditions can include behavioral health issues, across all setting among rural providers in Montana and Wyoming. This project expects to adduce admissions and readmissions, decrease total institutional days, and reduce unnecessary emergency department use.
The TMF Quality Innovation Network’s https://www.tmfgin.org award is going to work on developing and implementing a Chronic Care Management (CCM) learning and action network for 100 primary care practices. In order to take part, the practices must be using certified EHRs throughout Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas in order to integrate CCM practices into the physician’s work flow.
It is expected to increase the rate of implementation of CCM by providers, reduce hospital admission and r3eadmission rates, and examine the unadjusted cost of inpatient and outpatient care for eligible beneficiaries and for beneficiaries that do not take part in the CCM benefit.
Go to http://qioprogram.org/cms-awards-special-innovation-projects for a list of all the awards