Quality Improvement Organizations (QIOs) are at the forefront of patient safety efforts nationwide. QIOs are involved in state and national collaborative partnerships that are advancing programs to improve patient safety. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) National Patient Safety Initiative (NPSI) supports transparency in quality and patient safety by working with nursing homes and hospitals in the 9th Statement of Work.
Patient Safety
 The activities of the Patient Safety Theme, also known as NPSI, are designed to focus on eliminating patient harm by improving health care processes and systems. At the state level, QIOs are instrumental in creating and promoting initiatives to advance patient safety efforts that affect all patients.

The Patient Safety Theme focuses on five primary components:

  • Reducing rates of health care-associated methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections;
  • Improving inpatient surgical safety and heart failure treatment in hospitals;
  • Reducing rates of pressure ulcers in nursing homes and hospitals;
  • Reducing rates and use of physical restraints in nursing homes; and
  • Improving drug safety.

Additional QIO activities that are part of this initiative include:

  • Providing quality improvement technical assistance to nursing homes in need;
  • Providing assistance with survey instruments geared toward leadership and/or patient safety processes in hospitals and nursing homes;
  • Reaching out to hospitals and nursing homes in rural areas; and
  • Offering TeamSTEPPS training to participating hospital and nursing home staff.

QIOs are specifically teaming with select nursing homes and hospitals to work on these activities in the 9th Statement of Work (SOW). This improvement initiative began on August 1, 2008 and will continue through July 31, 2011.
This site was created by the Colorado Foundation for Medical Care through funding by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Contract #HHSM-500-2008-CO9THC/CO0001.