- 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
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As a valued partner in health care quality, Alliant Health Solutions is excited to share the brand-new, interactive QIO Program 2021 Yearly Summary with you. The QIO Program 2021 Yearly Summary illustrates the successes of the QIO program-participating providers and partners making groundbreaking achievements in health care quality improvement.
Data to drive decisions. Despite the ongoing public health emergency, partnerships with organizations like yours helped maintain national progress on critical health care priorities. Local wins, when viewed through a national lens, led to big results. Together, we achieved outcomes like these:
- A 24% reduction in opioid adverse drug events among people with Medicare served by enrolled Partnerships for Community Health (formerly community coalitions)
- A 14% reduction in the incidence of Clostridioides difficile infection among patients treated at enrolled hospitals
- An 87% COVID-19 primary series vaccination rate among residents at participating nursing homes
Download and share the QIO Program 2021 Yearly Summary with your leadership team, staff and other partners interested in health care quality improvement. We hope the QIO Program 2021 Yearly Summary helps you and your team reflect on what those of us who provide care have learned in the last year—and plan for where we want to go.
Thank you for the privilege of partnering with you to improve health care quality, safety and equity for people with Medicare.
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Events
Recorded on May 25, 2023
**ANCC credit awarded until 6/24**
This session discussed strategies for using the AHRQ TAKEheart framework to embed automatic referrals and care coordination into the workflow to improve cardiac rehabilitation participation.
Watch Recording | View Materials
Were You Able to "Use Tomorrow" What You Heard During the LAN Events?
If Yes, Click Below.
Nursing Homes LAN Attendees: Click here
Partnership for Community Health LAN Attendees:Click here
Thursday, June 15 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 new updates to NHSN reporting. 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.
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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
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Leadership
Words of advice from leaders on the front lines.
This month’s leadership lesson is from Nicole Haas, MPH, CPH, CPHQ, Alliant's quality improvement initiative manager.
Leading Through Ambiguity
With the end of the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE) on May 11, 2023, health care leaders are facing questions and uncertainties about how to move forward. However, amidst this ambiguity, there are valuable lessons that leaders can draw upon from the past three years. These lessons include:
- Embrace bold thinking - The pandemic showed us that taking risks and thinking outside the box can lead to successful outcomes, as seen with the rapid development of vaccines.
- Be imaginative - Allowing room for creativity opens up new possibilities and solutions.
- Foster curiosity - Exploring new ideas, asking questions, and creating new opportunities can lead to growth and learning.
- Prioritize your people - During the pandemic, remote work became the norm and frontline staff worked tirelessly. Moving forward, it's essential to maintain a balance that supports both individual and organizational needs.
The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted the way we work, lead, and think. But it didn’t happen overnight. It was a huge undertaking that involved countless hours of dedication. Thank you to all of you for your continued efforts.
For more information about the end of the PHE, visit Alliant's website.
Alliant Health Solutions' health equity lead, Rosa Abraha, curated the following health trainings, events and resources related to health equity. Check out the resources listed below.
CMS Proposes Policies To Improve Patient Safety and Promote Health Equity
CMS released a press release and factsheet on a proposed rule addressing health equity in fiscal year (FY) 2024.
Key points in the proposed rule include:
- CMS is proposing to make health equity adjustments in the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing Program by providing incentives to hospitals to perform well on existing measures and to those who care for high proportions of underserved individuals, as defined by dual eligibility status.
- CMS is proposing to recognize homelessness as an indicator of increased resource utilization in the acute inpatient hospital setting, which may result in higher payment for certain hospital stays.
- CMS is proposing to change the severity designation of the three ICD-10-CM diagnosis codes describing homelessness (e.g., unspecified, sheltered, and unsheltered) from non-complication or comorbidity (NonCC) to complication or comorbidity (CC) based on the higher average resource costs of cases with these diagnosis codes compared to similar cases without these codes.
- CMS is proposing to add 15 new health equity hospital categorizations for the FY 2024 IPPS payment impacts. Moving forward, one of the priorities of the CMS Framework for Health Equity 2022-2032 is to expand the collection, reporting, and analysis of standardized health equity data.
- CMS is also proposing that rural emergency hospitals could be designated as graduate medical education training sites. As a result, more medical residents would be able to train in rural settings, which can help address workforce shortages in these communities.
There is a 60-day public comment period, and comments can be posted here.
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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 |
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Resources
COVID-19
View All COVID-19 News & Resources
CMS Final Rule Removes COVID-19 Testing and Staff Vaccination Requirements
On May 31, 2023, CMS announced a final rule, “Medicare and Medicaid Programs; Policy and Regulatory Changes to the Omnibus COVID-19 Health Care Staff Vaccination Requirements; Additional Policy and Regulatory Changes to the Requirements for Long-Term Care (LTC) Facilities and Intermediate Care Facilities for Individuals With Intellectual Disabilities (ICFs-IID) to Provide COVID-19 Vaccine Education and Offer Vaccinations to Residents, Clients, and Staff; Policy and Regulatory Changes to the Long Term Care Facility COVID-19 Testing Requirements.”
This rule will be effective 60 days after it is published in the federal register on June 5, 2023, and makes three key changes:
- Removes expired language addressing staff and resident COVID-19 testing requirements issued in the interim final rule (IFR) “LTC Facility Testing” on September 2, 2020.
- Withdraws the regulations published in the IFR "COVID-19 Health Care Staff Vaccination" on November 5, 2021.
- Finalizes certain provisions published in the IFR “COVID-19 Vaccine Educate and Offer” on May 13, 2021.
CMS COVID-19 Vaccine Regulatory Changes
CMS is withdrawing all requirements to vaccinate staff for COVID-19 issued in the staff vaccination IFC. This removes section 483.80(i) of the SNF requirements of participation and 483.430(f) of the ICF/IID conditions of participation.
- This means that the requirement to have all staff vaccinated for COVID-19 or receive a medical exemption will be removed.
- Note, COVID-19 vaccination of health care staff and residents will be reported through the SNF Quality Reporting Program (QRP).
- Guidance on this rule is available in QSO-21-19-NH .
- CMS is finalizing all elements of this rule except for the language referring to LTC facility staff refusing the COVID-19 vaccine originally set forth at § 483.80(d)(3)(v).
- Note that this rule maintains the requirement to report COVID-19 vaccine status for residents and staff to NHSN.
Share Your Feedback for NCRN’s 'For the Love of Mine' Flyer
Alliant’s NCRN team spent two years working with the University of South Florida on a social marketing project around the COVID-19 vaccine. The process included developing the For the Love of Mine flyer. Check out the flyer and scan the QR code to provide feedback and assist us in improving social marketing efforts. Share the flyer with others so that we can get their feedback too! View Flyer
Opioid Utliziation and Misuse
Find Support for Mental Health, Drugs or Alcohol
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) launched FindSupport.gov, a new user-friendly website designed f to help the general public find available resources, explore unbiased information about various treatment options, and learn how to get support for issues related to mental health, drugs or alcohol. Visit Website
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:
Patient Safety
The Alliant Health Solutions Healthcare-associated infections (HAI) Surveillance & Dashboard tool is a modifiable spreadsheet designed to support nursing facility infection prevention and control (IPC) surveillance. This spreadsheet features line lists, data tables, and graphs for respiratory tract infections, urinary tract infections, gastrointestinal tract infections, skin and soft tissue infections, multi-drug resistant organism (MDRO) infections, and hand hygiene surveillance. Check out all our HAI Surveillance resources, including an instructional video on how to use the HAI Surveillance & Dashboard tool. Download HAI Surveillance & Dashboard Tool | View Instructional Video
COVID-19 Data Reporting to NHSN After Public Health Emergency Ends
Long-term care facilities are required to continue reporting COVID-19 data to NHSN even though the PHE ended on May 11. Changes to the NHSN application may include reduction, simplification or modification of data elements in the LTCF component. Specific details regarding these changes will be reviewed during upcoming training webinars.
Register in advance and plan to attend one of the training sessions to learn more about the new updates. Each webinar will cover the same information; therefore, you may only need to attend once. On April 18, 2023, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced changes to its Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) regarding COVID-19 vaccines. After this announcement, CDC simplified COVID-19 vaccine recommendations. The COVID-19 Vaccination Modules: Understanding Key Terms and Up to Date Vaccination outlines key terms related to NHSN COVID-19 vaccination surveillance for each reporting quarter.
Continue to report data to NHSN based on the definitions provided in the document through Quarter 2 (March 27, 2023, through June 25, 2023). This means facilities should continue to report anyone who previously received a primary vaccine series (between December 2020 and April 18, 2023) in questions 2.1 and 2.2. In addition, do not report anyone who was previously unvaccinated and receives a single bivalent dose in questions 2.1 or 2.2. Instead, report these individuals in question 3.3 (unknown/other vaccination status).
Training
Infection Prevention Training
CMS seeks to improve nursing home care and provide opportunities to expand training for infection prevention (IP). CMS set a national goal for each nursing home to have, at a minimum, 75% of direct-care staff trained in IP. CMS approved the following list of trainings:
- CMS QSEP Targeted COVID-19 Training for Frontline NH Staff
- CDC Project Firstline
- HealthStream
- Health care Academy
- Relias
Scan the QR code below and complete the assessment to let us know what training you may provide in your facility. We can offer assistance with training program implementation as well. Visit https://bit.ly/NHIPAssessment.
Got questions? Need help? Want more information? Contact Rainmakers Strategic Solutions at 800-950-5636 or email NHIPTraining@rainmakerssolutions.com.
Emergency Preparedness: The Changing Landscape
The 2023 hurricane season has begun. We invite you to join us on July 27 to learn about the latest changes in weather patterns that can impact emergency planning. We will also discuss integrating TIC principles into emergency preparedness and provide a sneak peek of the AHS online TIC training module for frontline staff. To register for this event, visit the Alliant Health Solutions Events page in late June.
Trauma-Informed Training PPT with Pre- and Post-Assessments for Frontline Staff
Staff competency is one of the key elements of facilities’ trauma-informed culture. Alliant Health Solutions created a ready-to-use learning module with facilitator notes, case scenarios and pre-and post-tests to aid in developing nursing assistant and frontline staff competency in trauma-informed care.
Download the Trauma Informed Care PPT Training for Frontline Staff | Download Trauma Informed Care Pre- and Post-Learning Assessment Guide
Tennessee Long-Term Care Facility Training: Respiratory Protection Programs and N95 Fit Testing
Through a collaboration between the State of Tennessee Department of Health and EcoPro Services, long-term care facilities in Tennessee can participate in free comprehensive training on Respiratory Protection Programs (RPP) and N95 Fit Testing. Participants will gain the necessary skills and knowledge to effectively implement RPP and N95 fit testing in their workplaces, ensuring the safety and health of their employees and residents. Visit https://ltcftraining.com/ or contact Kevin Lewis at info@ecoproguard.com or call (901) 300-4802.
Chronic Disease
As we celebrate Men's Health Month this June, it's important to bring attention to the unique health challenges that men face and encourage them to prioritize their overall well-being. This is the perfect time to promote proactive self-care and urge men to undergo regular check-ups and preventative screenings to make healthy lifestyle choices.
For older men, keeping their blood pressure under control is especially vital. According to data from CMS, hypertension affects approximately 64% of Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries, with its prevalence increasing with age. Additionally, the latest National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, published in 2020, reports that the prevalence of age-adjusted hypertension was 45.4% among adults and higher among men (51.0%) than women (39.7%).
While hypertension can be effectively managed through lifestyle changes and medication, it's crucial to have regular blood pressure screenings with a doctor. Medicare offers a free annual wellness visit, including blood pressure screening, as part of the Affordable Care Act. Encourag your patients to schedule regular screenings and take advantage of available health care services. For more information on general screening and monitoring, refer to the following resources:
Care Coordination & Partnerships for Community Health
Alliant Health Solutions has two new patient engagement resources designed to encourage patients to participate in cardiac rehab.
A five-minute YouTube video features a member of our Beneficiary and Family Advisory Council sharing her experience participating in cardiac rehab and how it changed her life. This video can be used in a variety of channels:
Patient education and discharge planning communications with patients and care partners
Broadcasting on your patient tv channels, waiting room and lobby TVs.
Adding a link to the testimonial video to your patient discharge materials, your cardiac rehab webpage and sharing on your media platforms
In addition, the AHS Barriers to Cardiac Rehab Resource flyer has links to websites and the patient testimonial. View Video | View Flyer
Monthly Nursing Home Readmissions Reduction Affinity Group Resumes on July 11 at 2 p.m. EST/1 p.m. CST
Join us as we continue our deep dive into readmission prevention. Building on your feedback, we will highlight experiences from the field and solutions to the challenges participants have raised around implementing and embedding evidence-based best practices into day-to-day operations. Bring your facility-specific challenges and ideas to our all-teach, all-learn forum. NAB credits and ANCC contact hours are available for these sessions.
Visit the Alliant Health Solutions Events page and watch your email for the registration flyer.
Age-Friendly Health Systems Prioritizes Evidence-Based Practices for Older Adults
Age-Friendly Health Systems is an initiative of The John A. Hartford Foundation and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), in partnership with the American Hospital Association (AHA) and the Catholic Health Association of the United States (CHA) designed to meet the challenge of reliably providing evidence-based practice to every older adult at every care interaction.
Age-Friendly Health Systems aims to follow an essential set of evidence-based practices, cause no harm, and align with What Matters to the older adult and their care partners.
View Alice Bonners’ presentation from the CMS 2023 Quality conference, Age-Friendly Health Systems: What We Can Do Together Now, to learn more about Age-Friendly Health Systems.
Immunization
Promote the Pneumococcal Vaccine in Your Community
Alliant Health Solutions added Spanish subtitles to the two-minute YouTube video Pneumonia Spreads Quickly – Get Your Vaccine today. This brief video vignette, developed with members of our Medicare Beneficiary and Family Council, guides three friends through a discussion about pneumonia and the benefits of getting vaccinated. Share with community organizations and stream on patient and waiting room televisions to raise awareness in your community. Watch Video
What Am I Sick With?
A Spanish version of the “What Am I Sick With” flyer is now available on the Alliant Quality website. The flyer highlights common symptoms of flu, RSV, pneumonia and COVID to help older adults determine when to seek medical treatment or isolate and what treatments and vaccinations are available. Share this resource with community organizations or places where Spanish-speaking older adults have access to community bulletin boards. Download Flyer
Beneficiary & Family Advisory Council (BFAC)
Browse resources our council has worked on below:
Skin Cancer Awareness
Did you know that most cases of melanoma, the deadliest type of skin cancer, are caused by overexposure to ultraviolet (UV) rays? To minimize your risk of developing skin cancer, shield your skin from the sun and avoid indoor tanning. As summer is upon us, it's essential to take necessary precautions and protect your skin every time you step out. Although sunscreen is a useful tool, it's not enough, and you should consider additional measures to safeguard your skin while outdoors. Read More
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