Corporate Nursing Home Improvement Collaborative (CNHIC)

The Colorado Foundation for Medical Care (CFMC) and Quality Partners of Rhode Island (QPRI) led the CMS-sponsored Corporate Nursing Home Improvement Collaborative (CNHIC), also known as Linking with Nursing Home Corporations Implementing Quality Improvement Collaboratives. The purpose of the CNHIC was to assist long-term care corporations in implementing improvement collaboratives to improve delivery of care systems for pain management in nursing facilities. Eight multi-state, multi-facility nursing home corporations participated in the project for 18 months, through January 2005. These corporations volunteered for the project and were selected based on criteria developed by CMS, which required the corporations to have a minimum of 50 facilities in at least ten states.

By using a collaborative approach, the corporations benefited from sharing learning experiences both within and across corporations. This enabled rapid improvement for the care of the residents. Once established, the collaborative approach can be applied to other topic areas. Four two-day learning sessions were held with the corporations so they could learn the collaborative model for rapid improvement. Institute of Healthcare Improvement (IHI) collaborative, pain management, quality improvement, and organizational culture experts comprise the core faculty for the collaboratives. Data analysis was a significant part of the project, measuring both quantitative and qualitative components that are associated with improvements. A final outcomes congress was held for sharing of successes, products, and lessons learned.

CNHIC’s learning session and outcomes congress schedule:

Learning Session #1 April 29 & 30, 2003 Baltimore, Maryland
Learning Session #2 June 17 & 18, 2003 Baltimore, Maryland
Learning Session #3 November 4 & 5, 2003 Orlando, Florida
Learning Session #4 March 30 & 31, 2004 Baltimore, Maryland
Final Outcomes Congress August 10 & 11, 2004 Baltimore, Maryland

The CNHIC faculty conducted four corporate learning sessions and the corporate outcomes congress. The eight participating-corporations completed their facility learning sessions and facility outcomes congress. A majority of the corporations adopted rapid cycle testing into their corporate wide quality improvement infrastructure. The corporations developed a plan for spreading information and strategies from CNHIC to their non-participating facilities. Ongoing awareness of the pain collaborative continues within the corporations through corporate wide newsletters and as a standing agenda item for meetings of all levels within the corporations.

CFMC provides open communication with the corporations, QIO community, and CMS on a continual basis to share learning experiences of CNHIC.

News Release: Multi-State Nursing Home Companies, Quality Improvement Organizations, and CMS Work Together to Reduce Pain for Residents

The Colorado Foundation for Medical Care (CFMC), the Medicare quality improvement organization for Colorado, prepared this material under contract with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The contents do not necessarily reflect CMS Policy.