Quality Improvement Organizations (QIOs) 9th Scope of Work

For QIOs around the nation a new three-year contract, will begin Aug. 1 which will focuses on performance measures, requiring QIOs to meet goals if they want to receive financial incentives and future contracts from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Through the new statement of work, QIOs must work with a variety of healthcare facilities to improve quality and performance in four key areas: protecting beneficiaries, care transitions, patient safety and prevention. The CMS will use nationally endorsed measurements, available on its hospital comparison Web site to monitor the QIOs' progress. QIOs will also have to work closely with providers to encourage the use of electronic health records especially to track immunizations and cancer screening, and will use data from case reviews to determine problems in quality of care. CMS has stated that the changes are in response to reports by the Institute of Medicine and the Government Accountability Office that questioned Medicare's management of the QIOs. Under the new contract, QIOs will be expected to reach performance milestones throughout the three years, instead of facing one review at the end of the contract. To view the QIO statement of work go to http://www.cms.hhs.gov/QualityImprovementOrgs/04_9thsow.asp#TopOfPage