For four decades, the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has been focused on improving the quality of healthcare provided to Medicare recipients across all care settings. To do this work, CMS relies on the Quality Improvement Organization – or QIO program to measure and improve quality and motivate providers to engage in healthcare quality improvement initiatives. IPRO has been involved in this work since its inception.

In this episode of Quality Watch, Dr. Patricia Gagliano, Vice President of Healthcare Quality Improvement at IPRO, discusses the QIO program, how it works, and who is eligible to participate in this current contract period.

Please visit qi.ipro.org to learn more about the Mid-Atlantic QIN-QIO (Region 2).

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CMS recently introduced regulatory changes that affect the way state Medicaid programs collect, maintain, and share provider information with beneficiaries. Underpinning these changes is the requirement that, by January 1, 2027, states implement a Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources – or FHIR-based Application Programming Interface to enable public access to provider directory information. IPRO's Nikolas Matthes, MD, PhD, MPH, MSc; Collin York, and Matthew Roberts, MPH, DrPH, explain the FHIR API and how it can enhance states' provider directories.

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Patient Family Advisory Council exist in 51.36% of hospitals, according to the most recent data from the American Hospital Association. Similar initiatives exist within nursing homes, rehab facilities and provider groups, underscoring the essential role of the voice of the patient in designing and delivery high quality healthcare.

PFACs have been shown to help providers deliver safe, culturally responsive, and equitable healthcare. More recently, a new term has emerged. Patient, Family, and Care-partner Advisors – PFCAs – are individuals who provide insights based on their lived experiences to help healthcare organizations improve the quality of care.

In this episode of Quality Watch, we hear from Laura Avelino, a senior quality improvement specialist at IPRO, and Rosie Bartel, who has been a patient advocate since her daughter was born two months premature in 1978.

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In late 2023, the Trusted Framework and Common Agreement, more commonly known as TEFCA – was established as a nationwide policy and technology framework for health information sharing. TEFCA was created by the US Health and Human Services Agency to remove barriers to information sharing among providers, patients, public health agencies, health information networks, payers and pharmacies. The goals are to improve the flow of data to improve patient care, public health, benefits determination, utilization review, quality assessment and improvement, and more.

In this episode of Quality Watch, Matthew Roberts, IPRO’s Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, discusses TEFCA and its promise for patients, providers, and public health agencies.

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In recognition of IPRO's 40th anniversary, our guest is Ted Will, founder and CEO of IPRO, who looks back at 40 years of healthcare quality improvement. We also take a look at recent healthcare quality improvement headlines and crunch some numbers in our Data Watch segment.

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Today's guest is Melanie Ronda, MSN, RN, LTC-CIP, CPHQ, Director of QIN-QIO T1 & 3 and Infection Preventionist at IPRO. Melanie addressed the rates of vaccination in long-term care facilities, and some strategies for overcoming vaccine hesitancy, particularly among older adults.

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"You save one life, you save the world." - Harry Feder, our latest Quality Watch Podcast guest. Harry decided recently to retire from his role as IPRO's COO after a remarkable 50-year career in healthcare, 37 of them at IPRO. In this episode, he reflects on half a century of healthcare quality improvement. Host Dr. Edison Machado also shares the latest headlines and data from the healthcare quality improvement landscape.

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Since 1991, IPRO has worked with the New York State Department of Health AIDS Institute on a broad project with the goal of decreasing new HIV infections in New York State to less than 750 per year. Hear how it is going from the team leading this work for IPRO.

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