Health Services Advisory Group (HSAG), a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Quality Innovation Network–Quality Improvement Organization (QIN-QIO) helped more than 634 nursing homes in its two-state region improve the accuracy of their COVID-19 vaccine data in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN).

Nestled among the rolling hills of New England sits a 93-bed nursing facility that is home to many of the area’s former priests and nuns. The facility, known for having embraced person-centered care long before the term was common, was struggling to increase its resident COVID-19 booster rate. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) referred the nursing home to IPRO, a CMS Quality Innovation Network-Quality Improvement Organization (QIN-QIO) for assistance.

Quality Insights’ goal is to provide support and meaningful webinar content to nursing homes. To meet this goal and to identify innovative ways to provide weekly COVID-19 infection control and vaccination/booster education to nursing homes, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Quality Innovation Network-Quality Improvement Organization (QIN-QIO) created a three-part webinar series intended to help nursing homes use their Quality Assurance and Performance Improvement (QAPI) plan to improve resident COVID-19 booster rates.

A nursing home in a large metropolitan area received technical assistance from Health Services Advisory Group (HSAG), a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Quality Innovation Network-Quality Improvement Organization (QIN-QIO), to improve its resident COVID-19 booster rate.

Two nursing homes struggling to increase their resident COVID-19 booster rate were referred to Telligen, a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Quality Innovation Network-Quality Improvement Organization (QIN-QIO), for targeted technical assistance.

Health care professionals have made great strides to improve treatment for individuals with substance use disorder (SUD). These include developing screening tools and implementing workflows to identify patients who need treatment. Other strategies include increasing the availability of treatment, adding recovery coaches and creating peer support groups to help guide patients to this care. Despite these improvements, only 1 in 10 people with SUD receives treatment.

A nursing home in a Health Professional Shortage Area where one quarter of its residents are eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid (dual eligible) and 30 percent are racial or ethnic minorities, was referred to Qsource in February 2022 for assistance with improving its resident COVID-19 booster rate.

In January 2022, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services leveraged the expertise of Quality Innovation Network-Quality Improvement Organizations (QIN-QIOs) to increase nursing home resident COVID-19 vaccinations and boosters. IPRO QIN-QIO provided the nursing homes in its region with access to just-in-time education, training and resources to help them mount an effective defense against the new wave of COVID-19 cases driven by the Omicron variant.