Patient Safety

The Patient Safety Program, also known as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) National Patient Safety Initiative (NPSI), is designed to address areas of patient harm for which there is evidence that improving health care processes and systems improves safety. Under the new three-year contract with CMS, known as the 9th Statement of Work (SOW), quality improvement organizations (QIO) such as CCME are working with participating hospitals and nursing homes across the nation to improve performance on a set of important processes that will reduce patient risk factors.

Activities
CCME focuses patient safety activities on:

• Reducing the incidence of health care-associated Methicillin-resistant Staphlylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections in hospitals
• Improving prevention and healing of pressure ulcers in nursing homes and hospitals
• Lowering the usage of physical restraints in nursing homes
• Improving inpatient surgical safety and heart failure treatment in hospitals
• Improving drug safety
• Providing quality improvement technical assistance to nursing homes in need (as identified by state inspections)

Approach
In addition to the strong relationships CCME has built with the provider community and stakeholders groups, CCME offers a unique and innovative approach to patient safety work. For the 9th SOW, CCME provides key training such as:

• Technical assistance in quality improvement techniques, including on-site assessment, and planning.
• Educational workshops, teleconferences, and webinars in quality improvement techniques such as root cause analysis, PDSA cycle, and rapid cycle change.
• Assistance with quality measurement, data analysis, and benchmarking.
• Assistance with collaborating and sharing data across settings.
• Technical assistance with implementation of the CDC’s National Healthcare Safety Network MRSA Multi-Drug Resistant Organism (MDRO) module.
• Training in TeamSTEPPS™ to improve teamwork and communication among clinical staff.
• Access to tools, resources, and interventions that are proven to improve quality of care.
• Opportunities to share lessons learned, challenges, and best practices among facilities.
• Access to innovative, evidence-based processes that are linked to safe, high quality health care outcomes for all patients.

CCME also provides hospitals and nursing homes with innovative evidence-based processes that are linked to safe, high quality, health care outcomes for the patients they serve. CCME also utilizes a quality improvement support model with providers called The Collaborative Consultative Model for Excellence. CCME uses these methods and training to spread change to help reach CMS patient safety goals.

Experience
CCME has been successful working with hospitals and nursing homes to measurably improve the quality of care given to people with Medicare in the Carolinas. CCME has worked on several components from previous contracts with CMS (surgical care, heart failure, pressure ulcers and restraints in nursing homes, and drug safety). This experience enables CCME to build on the progress made with providers in the past and to share lessons learned.

Services - Partnering with Local Hospitals and Nursing Homes
As part of our work as the QIO in North and South Carolina, CCME provides in-depth assistance to a set of local hospitals and nursing homes participating in our current Medicare-sponsored Patient Safety Program. CCME encourages any interested providers or organizations to use the resources posted on our website.

For more information on CCME's hospital and nursing home programs and services, please visit the Health Care Professionals section on this site or CCME’s corporate website.