Colorado Foundation for Medical Care Wins Three Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Contracts

October 6, 2011

Englewood, CO -- Colorado Foundation for Medical Care (CFMC) has been awarded a three-year contract by the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to serve as the Medicare Quality Improvement Organization (QIO) for Colorado. The contract began August 1, 2011, pursuing bold goals for achieving better patient care, better patient and population health and lower costs through improvement.

CFMC has also been awarded a QIO support contract by CMS to serve as the Integrating Care for Populations and Communities National Coordinating Center. As the National Coordinating Center, CFMC will lead 41 QIOs in 53 states and territories as they identify target communities within their states and work to implement improvement plans that coordinate hospital and community-based systems of care to improve care transitions and reduce unnecessary hospital readmissions.

CFMC also will continue its work supporting the Advancing Excellence in America's Nursing Homes campaign. CFMC has served as the QIO support contractor since the campaigns inception in 2006 and was recently awarded the 2011- 2014 contract by CMS. CFMC hosts and maintains a national campaign website that provides resources and support information to nursing homes, stakeholders and other QIOs throughout the country. The Advancing Excellence campaign seeks to raise Medicare beneficiaries' and nursing homes' awareness of the large impact of pressure ulcers among high-risk residents, the use of physical restraints, organizational challenges such as staff retention, consistent assignment and staff satisfaction on the quality of care in nursing homes.

As the Medicare QIO for Colorado, CFMC will partner with healthcare providers, patients and quality stakeholders throughout the state to:

Deliver Beneficiary and Family Centered Care. CFMC will focus on addressing individual patient and family preferences, needs and values. Specifically, this includes case review activities, including quality of care reviews, Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) reviews, provider discharge/service denial or discontinuation of healthcare services appeals, higher-weighted diagnosis-related group reviews and others.

Improve Individual Patient Care. CFMC will work with Colorado hospitals to reduce healthcare-associated infections (HAI) including central line bloodstream infections by implementing the Comprehensive Unit-Based Safety Program (CUSP), then expand to encompass catheter-associated urinary tract infections, Clostridium difficile and surgical site infections. All Medicare-participating hospitals also will receive technical assistance for reporting inpatient and outpatient quality data to CMS. In nursing homes, CFMC's work will initially target pressure ulcers and physical restraints, then evolve to address other healthcare-acquired conditions, such as falls and catheter-associated urinary tract infections.

Integrate Care for Populations and Communities. CFMC will bring together hospitals, nursing homes, patient advocacy organizations and other stakeholders in community coalitions. Goals are to build capacity for improving care transitions, reduce unnecessary hospital readmissions and support communities in efforts to obtain funding through the Community-Based Care Transitions Program (CCTP), Section 3026 of the Affordable Care Act.

Improve Health for Populations and Communities. CFMC will assist physician practices that want to use their electronic health record system to coordinate preventive services and report related quality measures to CMS. Practices also can participate in a learning network focused on reducing patient risk factors for cardiac disease. CFMC is also working in partnership with the Colorado Regional Extension Center (CoREC) to promote health IT integration into clinical practice.

The QIO Program is a major force and partner for the continual improvement of health and healthcare for all Americans. A network of QIOs representing every U.S. state and territory are working together to achieve national quality goals through focused efforts at the community level. QIOs ensure the quality, effectiveness, efficiency, and economy of healthcare services provided to people with Medicare.

With these new contracts, CFMC welcomes participation by all who want to contribute to better care, better health and lower costs through improvement. For more information, visit www.cfmc.org.