BFCC-QIO Changes That Require Action by Healthcare Providers
Effective June 8, 2019, KEPRO will be the Beneficiary and Family Centered Care Quality Improvement Organization (BFCC-QIO) in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Montana,...
Patients Can Take Charge of Their Blood Pressure through Self Monitoring
Nearly half of adults in the United States have high blood pressure, and of these, almost half (45.6%) are not controlled. High blood pressure contributes to major health conditions such as heart attack, heart failure, stroke, kidney failure, diabetes and other health...
What’s on the GPQIN Calendar?
The Great Plains Quality Innovation Network offers several educational opportunities for healthcare partners. The topics are diverse; there is something for everyone! We hope you are able to join us.
11th Annual Summit on Quality – A Huge Success!
The 11th annual Summit on Quality was held on May 10, 2019 at the Hyatt Regency in Wichita, Kansas. The Summit is a quality improvement educational event drawing healthcare leaders from across Kansas; this years' Summit boasted a record number of attendees....
Pharmacy School Supports Changes in Medication Management
University of North Carolina (UNC) Eshelman School of Pharmacy’s Center for Medication Optimization is creating a care coordination hub to help community pharmacists proactively manage medications for chronically ill patients. Linked below are podcasts, developed by...
National EMS Week: Beyond the Call
EMS practitioners are often a sepsis patient’s first contact into the healthcare system and in severe cases, the timely assessment and treatment they provide can greatly impact patient outcomes. EMS practitioners are uniquely positioned to improve the early and vital...
Avera Eureka Health Care Center Consistently in Top 10% for Quality Measure Composite Score
Avera Eureka Health Care Center (Avera Eureka) has achieved the monthly National Nursing Home Quality Care Collaborative (NHQCC) Quality Measure Composite Score goal of 6.0 or less for the past 30 months. Achieving this monthly score is significant as only 10% of the...
Moderating Lifestyle to Reduce Cardiovascular Risk
When speaking with your patients about how to decrease their risk of stroke and cardiovascular disease, lifestyle changes are an important aspect but can be difficult to tackle. One place to start is the American Heart Association’s Life’s Simple 7: encouraging...
Strong Beyond the Call: Recognizing the Value of EMS Professionals
Residents of rural and frontier areas rely on local Emergency Medical Services (EMS) professionals and volunteers to provide life-saving care when time is of the essence. These first responders become the faces and voices for those in healthcare crisis. In addition...
Stroke and the Importance of Accurate Blood Pressure Measurement
The number of Americans at risk for heart attacks and strokes just got a lot higher. An estimated 103 million U.S. adults have high blood pressure, according to new statistics from the American Heart Association. That’s nearly half of all adults in the United States....
One Minute I Could Talk; The Next, I Could Not
About 103 million adults in the United States have high blood pressure. Nearly half of those people don’t have their blood pressure controlled. High blood pressure causes the heart to pump harder to move blood through the body which can weaken blood vessels and damage...
Just Culture Impacts Risk Management
Just Culture is a clear and easy-to-use healthcare quality tool used to manage risk and prevent adverse events. Leaders use the system to determine if an action was a simple human error, a risky choice or a reckless choice and how that behavior or choice...
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Nebraska Antimicrobial Stewardship Summit – Register Today [Deadline Approaching]
2019 Nebraska Antimicrobial Stewardship Summit Friday, May 31 • Beardmore Event Center of Bellevue Infections of the urinary tract, respiratory tract and skin and soft-tissues are the most common infectious conditions affecting patients across diverse healthcare...
Challenges for Sepsis Survivors
Post-Sepsis Life: A Challenge for Many Survivors and their Loved Ones The National Sepsis Alliance recently shared information on what life looks like after sepsis. The article provides insight as to what follows after you are told you can go home. Every year, over 1...
Celebrating Healthcare Professionals
The Great Plains Quality Innovation Network team would like to celebrate the incredible people that you are, your incredible coworkers (including our own) and the places where you work! Thank you for all you do to contribute to your profession, your communities and...
Champion Clean Care – It’s In Your Hands!
Protect yourself and your patients from potentially deadly germs by cleaning your hands. Be sure you clean your hands the right way at the right times. Simple hand hygiene is a practical and evidence-based approach with demonstrated impact on quality of care and...
Rolling out Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) for Providers
The misuse of prescribed and non-prescribed opioids has led to a rise in deaths and created a ripple effect for increased hospitalization and healthcare costs. Although education, resources, and policies have been developed for prescribing opioid medication,...
Opioid Prescribing Rate Maps for Great Plains QIN States Available
Many individuals and families in the United States are adversely affected by the opioid crisis, often from misuse of prescription opioids. While the epidemic of opioid misuse, overdose, and death is a multifaceted crisis, changing the management of pain towards...
You Can Laugh or You Can Cry
Five days after Jan celebrated her 65th birthday, her life was changed forever. She had just gotten home from having dinner with friends. While she was changing clothes she suddenly fell. Thankfully, she landed on her bed avoiding any major injury. She felt like...
#MoveWithHeart During National High Blood Pressure Education Month
Hypertension or High Blood Pressure increases your risk of dangerous health conditions, like heart attack, stroke and heart failure. Lifestyle changes, such as increasing physical activity might lower your risk for developing hypertension. During National High Blood...
Discharge Checklist Improves Medication Reconciliation and Post-Acute Handoff
Health Leaders recently reported that a new discharge checklist to improve discharge summaries and medication reconciliation implemented at the Cleveland Clinic increased the main campus’ completion rate for medication reconciliation from 88% to 98.7% and increased...
Four Great Plains QIN Region Hospitals Named to Becker’s Healthcare Top 100 Great Hospitals in America
Four hospitals in the Great Plains QIN region appeared on Becker's Healthcare list of "100 great hospitals in America." The hospitals included on this list have been recognized nationally for excellence in clinical care, patient outcomes, and staff and physician...
Rising Stroke Impact at Younger Ages: Blood Pressure Impacts Risk
Strokes are happening at younger ages and statistics show increasing rates for the 45-64 age group. High blood pressure is one of the risk factors for stroke, along with high cholesterol, obesity and diabetes. Given the connection, National Stroke Awareness and...
Bringing Joy through Music to South Dakota Nursing Facility Residents
Several residents at Platte Health Care Avera are enjoying the benefits of individualized music playlists thanks to the Music & Memory ® South Dakota program. The program can assist in many areas including decreased use of anti-psychotic medications and depression...
National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day is April 27
National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day is Saturday, April 27, 2019. The goal of this event is to provide consumers a safe, convenient and responsible way to dispose of unused or expired prescription drugs. The last Take-Back Day brought in more than 900,000 pounds...
2019 Nebraska Antimicrobial Stewardship Summit – Register Today
2019 Nebraska Antimicrobial Stewardship Summit Friday, May 31 • Beardmore Event Center of Bellevue Infections of the urinary tract, respiratory tract and skin and soft-tissues are the most common infectious conditions affecting patients across diverse healthcare...
Lowering Medication Prescribing Errors
Fewer Errors Seen in Computerized Prescribing System That Selects Medications Based on Indications A Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE) system that incorporated drug indications into prescription ordering workflows improved clinicians’ efficiency and...
CMS Seeking Quality Payment Program Clinician Champions
Do you enjoy thinking outside-of-the-box? Do you enjoy identifying unique ways to educate clinicians and generate awareness? If so, CMS is looking for you! The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is in search of candidates to voluntarily...
QuestionBuilder: Improving Patient-Doctor Communication
New App Eases Patient-Doctor Communication During Office Visits A new free mobile app from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) aims to help patients prepare questions for their next physician appointment. The app, QuestionBuilder, then helps the...
CMS ACO Care Coordination Toolkit
CMS is developing a series of toolkits that explore different aspects of Accountable Care Organization (ACO) operations; the first in the series was released April 10, 2019. The toolkit series aims to educate the public about strategies used by ACOs to provide...