CMS Releases Nursing Home Quality Initiatives FAQ Document

The CMS 2012 Nursing Home Action Plan calls for various partners to work together to weave a net of quality initiatives.  These multiple initiatives can be confusing to providers.  The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and Advancing Excellence in America’s Nursing Homes national campaign coordination group developed a set of common questions and answers in order to clarify how some of the many initiatives relate to and are aligned with each other. The purpose is to help nursing homes better understand how to participate in and benefit from the various initiatives.

According to the document, the “Create Strategic Approaches through Partnerships” strategy notes that as “no single approach or individual can fully assure better health care. . . CMS must combine, coordinate, and mobilize many people, techniques and levers through a partnership approach."

By partnering with State Survey Agencies (SSAs), Quality Improvement Organizations (QIOs), Advancing Excellence Local Area Networks for Excellence (LANEs), Ombudsman, trade associations and others, quality improvement may be addressed at the local level as well as national level, leading to system-wide improvement and "will achieve better care, better health and higher quality, while reducing costs.”

Contact:  Michelle Synakowski, msynakowski@leadingageny.org, 518-867-8850