• Latest news from CMS
• Register for upcoming events
• Leadership Lesson: Advice From the Frontlines
• Resources and information on:
  • Health Equity 
  • COVID-19
  • Opioid Utilization and Misuse
  • Patient Safety
  • Training 
  • Chronic Disease
  • Care Coordination and Partnerships for Community Health
  • Immunization 
  • BFAC

Register Today: 2023 CMS Quality Conference
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Quality Conference is a touchpoint and opportunity for solutions-oriented discussions. This year’s theme—Building Resilient Communities: Having an Equitable Foundation for Quality Healthcare—is an essential step in addressing work yet to be done on institutional and community equity across all areas of health care. 
The conference will cover eight unique tracks, allowing for diverse conversations on a range of crucial topics:

1. Patient Safety

2. Advancing Health Equity ​​​​​​

3. ​​​​Expanding Access to Quality & Affordable Behavioral and Physical Healthcare ​​​​​​

4. Collecting and Using Quality Data 

5. Engaging Partners and Communities 

6. Healthcare System Resiliency 

7. High Reliability and Quality Improvement 

8. New Innovation and Technology
    

Join the conference virtually May 1-3, 2023.  Register Here 

Events

Combined Partnerships for Community Health and Nursing Homes: Ideas for National Health Care Decisions Day and Beyond: Looking at Hope in a New Way
Recorded on March 23
*ANCC credit available until 4/22*
Few interactions are as satisfying as helping patients identify and then attain their goals. View the recording below to learn about giving hope as a high-reliability function of health care.  Watch Recording

Thursday, April 20 at 2 p.m. ET | 1 p.m. CT (60 min.)
 **ANCC and NAB credit awarded**

Join the monthly Shop Talk sessions hosted by the Alliant patient safety team. Attendees will receive updates on the NHSN database and CMS requirements. This month, we will discuss the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency and what it means for NHSN reporting, influenza vaccination reporting and NHSN updates. There will also be a live question-and-answer session to help with your immediate needs. Submitting data accurately into NHSN will help you more confidently plan your risk assessments and quality improvement initiatives.  

Join the Alliant Health Solutions-LTC NHSN Group!
Joining the group and conferring rights to Alliant Health Solutions-LTC to view NHSN data allows for seamless support and technical assistance.
View Step-By-Step Guide

Leadership

Health Equity Is Everyone's Job

The COVID-19 pandemic presented unprecedented challenges and exacerbated longstanding systemic health disparities, pushing the conversation around health equity from "why is this important?" to "how do we do this?" As a result, addressing health disparities has become a priority of the White House, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), CMS and the Joint Commission leadership.

Effective July 1, 2023, the Joint Commission has even elevated Standard LD.04.03.08, which addresses health care disparities as a quality and safety priority, to a new National Patient Safety Goal (NPSG), Goal 16: Improve health care equity, and moved to NPSG.16.01.01 for all hospitals, ambulatory health care organizations, behavioral health care and human services organizations, and critical access hospitals. The NPSG standard and six elements of performance increase the focus on improving health care equity as a quality and safety priority. This prioritization presents Alliant with a critical opportunity to be at the forefront of supporting hospitals, nursing homes and community partners to build more resilient communities and address longstanding social determinants of health (SDOH) across readmissions, opioid misuse, diabetes, and other critical chronic diseases.

In honor of National Minority Health Month, I want to share three critical action steps Alliant is taking to promote systematic integration of health equity across our work.

The first step is allowing our data to tell the stories of health disparities. In alignment with the CMS Framework for Health Equity, Alliant has ensured that our hospital and nursing home PowerBI dashboards display any known disparities across race/ethnicity, gender and disability status by facility and community. This data has allowed us to prioritize areas where we see the greatest need for improvement in health equity across the facilities and communities we serve and take strategic action on addressing health disparities. But we know this demographic disparity information across race, ethnicity and language (REaL) data doesn't tell us the whole picture, which has led us to innovate as the first QIN-QIO contractor to develop an SDOH mapping tool. With expected completion in the fall of 2023, this mapping tool will allow us and our providers to drill down into the deeper social needs disparities at the county level, including food insecurity, housing instability/homelessness, transportation and more. Given that a patient's care journey is 80% dependent on these non-clinical factors, we need to account for them in our data to drive the change we want toward health equity.

New Health Equity Resources From Alliant
Addressing health disparities has now become a priority of the White House, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), CMS and the Joint Commission leadership. Effective July 1, 2023, the Joint Commission has elevated Standard LD.04.03.08, which addresses health care disparities as a quality and safety priority, to a new National Patient Safety Goal (NPSG), Goal 16: Improve health care equity, and moved to NPSG.16.01.01 for all hospitals, ambulatory health care organizations, behavioral health care and human services organizations, and critical access hospitals. 

In response to these important shifts, Alliant is developing key health equity strategies, interventions and resources across our nursing home, hospital and partnerships for community health work to ensure facilities and communities are equipped to conduct this work effectively. We will continue to provide coaching, train-the-trainer sessions and tools as we build out Alliant’s first full spectrum health equity website. As we continue to build out these resources, check out and share the following bite-sized learning videos and public trainings from Alliant on health equity and health literacy:

• A Practical Guide for Advancing Health Equity - HQIC LAN 
• Health Literacy 101: Bite-Sized Learning Video
• Health Equity Presentation at Alabama Hospital Association Quality Forum

For more health equity information and support, contact our health equity lead, Rosa Abraha, at rosa.abraha@allianthealth.org. 

Podcast AHSCAST - Making Health Care Better

Everyone deserves quality health care. Tune into the Alliant Health Solutions Making Health Care Better podcast every other Thursday as they interview guests committed to making health care better. If you are a health care consumer, provider, insurer, system or consultant, this is the podcast for you. View All Podcast Episodes

Resources

COVID-19

COVID-19 Vaccine Effectiveness Update
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released updates to the COVID Data Tracker on March 23, 2023. The Vaccine Effectiveness page was updated to highlight vaccine effectiveness studies published from October 2022 to February 2023.  
View Website  

Bivalent Myths and Facts
Trusted sources of information are important to your residents. COVID vaccine uptake has been negatively impacted by the spread of false information. Utilize Alliant Health Solutions’ Bivalent Myths and Facts resource to educate your residents on some of the most common myths.  Download Resource 

Opioid Utliziation and Misuse

National Prescription Drug Take Back Day Set for April 22 
National Prescription Drug Take Back Day is April 22, 2023. National Prescription Drug Take Back Day aims to provide a safe, convenient, and responsible means of disposing of prescription drugs, while also educating the general public about the potential for abuse of medications. Locate a Take Back Site 

JAMA Article: Association Between Opioid Tapering and Subsequent Health Care Use, Medication Adherence, and Chronic Condition Control 
A recent article from the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) explores the association between opioid tapering and subsequent health care use.  Read the Article

X-Waiver No Longer Required To Treat Opioid Use Disorder 
As of January 12, 2023, all health care providers who have current Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Schedule III authorization may now prescribe buprenorphine for opioid use disorder when permitted by state law. Help your eligible provider partners get started prescribing buprenorphine by sharing the SAMHSA Buprenorphine Quick Start Guide.  Learn More | Download Buprenorphine Quick Start Guide 

2022 CDC Clinical Practice Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Pain 
The 2022 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Clinical Practice Guideline is intended to help clinicians:

• Improve communication with patients about the benefits and risks of pain treatments, including opioid therapy for pain
• Improve the safety and effectiveness of pain treatment
• Mitigate pain
• Improve function and quality of life for patients with pain
• Reduce the risks associated with opioid pain therapy (including opioid use disorder, overdose, and death)

View the Guideline

Prevent Opioid Overdose With Naloxone
Clinicians play an important role in raising awareness about naloxone, a medication that can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose when given in time. Visit the CDC’s naloxone website to learn how to talk with patients about naloxone and reduce their risk of opioid overdose. You can also earn free continuing education credits. Visit Website

Opioid Resources: 

• Medication Reconciliation Tips for Providers & Staff – Use this resource as a guide to completing med rec. Download Resource

• Medication Review Tip Sheet for Patients – Email or print this resource to give to your patients. Download Resource

• Medicine Disposal - Use this resource to safely dispose of unused, unwanted and expired medications. Download Resource

• Do’s & Don’ts of Pain Medicine - Use this resource to learn how to safely use pain medicine. Download Resource 

• My Med Bags:

  • Bite-Sized Learning

  • Ordering Website

Patient Safety

AHRQ Safety Program
In the AHRQ Safety Program for MRSA Prevention, long-term care facilities will receive evidence-based guidance, expert coaching, webinars, tools and strategies to reduce methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and other multidrug-resistant organism transmission. Register for an upcoming informational webinar and learn how to apply. Register Here

Hand Hygiene Compendium Update Published
“Strategies to prevent healthcare-associated infections through hand hygiene: 2022 update” was published in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology (ICHE). This expert guidance document highlights practical recommendations for hand hygiene implementation to prevent infections. Learn More

Join a new LTC IPC Community Forum
The American Health Care Association (AHCA) has partnered APIC with funding from CDC Project Firstline to set up a national forum for IPs and infection prevention champions working in long-term care (LTC) to share resources and get their questions answered. This is open to all LTC professionals focusing on infection prevention regardless of certification status or membership in either APIC or AHCA. If you are interested in participating, complete this three-question survey to provide your name and email.

AHS HAI Surveillance and Dashboard Tool
The Alliant Health Solutions Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAI) Surveillance & Dashboard tool is a modifiable spreadsheet for nursing facility infection prevention and control (IPC) surveillance. The spreadsheet features line lists, data tables, and graphs for respiratory tract infections, urinary tract infections, gastrointestinal tract infections, skin and soft tissue infections, and multi-drug resistant organism (MDRO) surveillance. The spreadsheet allows infection preventionists to track and display facility-wide HAIs, which will be helpful for reports, quality improvement committees, regulatory visits, etc. The tool can also be adapted for facility-specific IPC needs and surveillance priorities. Download HAI Surveillance and Dashboard Tool 

NHSN Updates for Long-Term Care Facilities: Vaccination Modules
Long-term care facilities that are required to report annual health care personnel influenza vaccination data to the National NHSN must do so using the Healthcare Personnel Safety (HPS) Component. Reporting weekly influenza vaccination data through the NHSN LTC Facility Component does not fulfill this reporting requirement. The CDC is not collecting weekly influenza vaccination data for LTC residents and health care personnel covering the 2022-2023 influenza season. The deadline to report the annual health care personnel influenza vaccination summary data through the NHSN HPS Component is May 15, 2023.

Resources:

• Video tutorial on enrolling in the HCP Component of NHSN, modifying user rights for data entry to the HPS Component, and the data collection and reporting required by CMS.

• Training materials

• NHSN HPS Flu Vaccine Protocol 2022

Training

Infection Prevention Training
Looking to increase staff’s infection prevention knowledge in your facility? Alliant Health Solutions, in collaboration with Rainmakers Strategic Solutions, developed an IP Training Implementation Guide to assist you! Download the IP Training Implementation Guide 

Got questions? Need help? Want more information? Contact Rainmakers Strategic Solutions at 800-950-5636 or email NHIPTraining@rainmakerssolutions.com.

Chronic Disease

Disability Inclusion Helps Address Disparities for People With Disabilities From Minority Populations 
April is National Minority Health Month, which aims to raise awareness about the health disparities faced by minorities, including those with disabilities. People with disabilities from minority populations have higher rates of chronic conditions such as diabetes and heart disease and face barriers to health care services. To address these disparities, health care professionals can ensure that health care facilities are accessible and accommodating to people with disabilities and provide education and resources to help individuals navigate the health care system and receive culturally competent quality care.

Disability inclusion involves input from people with disabilities in program or structural design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation, generally through disability-focused and independent living organizations. Examples include:
 

• Using language that places the person first rather than the disability. For example, saying "person with a disability" instead of "disabled person.” 
• Providing reasonable accommodations by modifying items, procedures, or systems to enable a person with a disability to use them to the maximum extent possible. A magnifying glass, a computer that talks and helps someone communicate in their native language, and even Smartphones can serve as assistive technologies during patient encounters. Mobility aids used by persons with physical disabilities during their interaction in the health care system from admission to discharge include wheelchairs, walkers, and scooters.
• Making communication accommodations when developing mixed multimedia resources for patients and providers. They should incorporate Braille, large print, and audio options for people who are blind or have visual limitations. Having an American Sign Language interpreter available during meetings and presentations, allowing the exchange of written messages, and enabling closed captioning in online platforms and media resources for people who are deaf or have difficulty hearing are other accommodations.
• Seeking the input and participation of people with disabilities in program or structural design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation. This can be done through the activation and engagement of Patient and Family Advisory Councils within disability-focused and independent living organizations, and through direct outreach to individuals with disabilities in the community.
• Participating in disability awareness training, cultural competence training, and training on specific disabilities and how to provide care to individuals with those disabilities.
• Advocating for disability inclusion and raising awareness about disability-related issues. 

Care Coordination & Partnerships for Community Health

Nursing Home Readmissions Affinity Group Session #7
Join us on April 18, 2023, at 2 p.m. ET/1 p.m. CT for the Nursing Home Readmissions Affinity Group Series Session 7: Communicating Across the Care Continuum. CEU credit is available for nursing home administrators and nurses.
In this session, participants will learn how to create continuity for patients across the continuum by collaborating with partners to use the same patient-facing education tools and techniques. We will learn from one facility’s experience expanding its patient education approach by piloting the CHF Zone Tool across their continuum engaging the hospital, assisted living, and medical practices. Register Here 

National Health Care Decisions Day – April 16, 2023
Moving goals of care conversations upstream ensures care is focused on patient goals and preferences and can reduce readmissions by establishing a care pathway that provides care at the right time, in the right place. Download the Alliant Health Solutions resource, Goals of Care: Be Conversation Ready, for ideas to create your successful National Health Care Decisions Day experience. There are multiple programs like the Conversation Project and the Stanford Letter Project that take slightly different approaches to thinking and documenting what matters most. Be Conversation Ready contains resource links to various programs to facilitate choosing what will work best for your population. In addition, view the March LAN event recording, Ideas for National Health Care Decisions Day and Beyond: Looking at Hope in a New Way, to learn about giving hope as a high-reliability function of health care.

Alliant's Newest Care Transitions Tool: Impact Super-Utilizer
Use the resources in this tool to guide your multidisciplinary health care team’s approach to managing the care of super-utilizers. Visit Alliant's Partnerships for Community Health webpage and Events page as we release additional materials and host events on this important topic. Download Impact Super-Utilizer Resource

NCRN’s New Podcast Teaches Lessons in Building Healthy Communities
The National COVID-19 Resiliency Network (NCRN) at the Morehouse School of Medicine proudly announces a new podcast called Connections: Lessons in Building Healthy Communities. Alliant Health Solutions is a strategic partner in the NCRN. In each episode, Rochelle Heard, NCRN community engagement program coordinator and podcast host, interviews guests who share their unique perspectives on how different communities build resilience and advance health equity through partnerships, education and resource sharing. Check out the podcast trailer to learn more about what you can expect. Listen Here

Immunization

COVID-19 Booster Video: We Can Do This 
Alliant Health Solutions partnered with a health literacy expert and our Beneficiary and Family Advisory Council to produce a two-minute video to help raise awareness and address common reasons for declining the COVID-19 booster vaccination.     
The video encourages those in our communities to get the COVID-19 booster. It also features our recent one-page flyer explaining the benefits of the COVID-19 booster and provides directions on using a QR code to find a convenient vaccination location.
Ways to use this video:

• Play the video in the lobby, waiting room, family council meeting and or patient television channels in your organization
• Share broadly with community organizations such as:  

  • Senior centers

  • Grocery stores

  • Faith-based organizations

  • Adult daycare centers

  • Assisted living centers

The video is available on the Alliant Health Solutions YouTube channel. Watch Video 

Beneficiary & Family Advisory Council (BFAC)

Keep on Your Feet—Preventing Older Adult Falls
Falls are common and costly, especially among Americans aged 65 and older. But falls are preventable and do not have to be an inevitable part of aging. Take steps to stay safe and independent longer. Read More

MyMobility Plan
Many people make financial plans for retirement, but not everyone plans for other changes that may come with age. This includes changes in mobility—your ability to get around. The CDC’s MyMobility Plan provides tips and a list of actions you and your loved ones can take today to help keep you safe and independent in the future. Download MyMobility Plan