Health care quality improvement services
To promote excellence in health care, we must first define it. To help do that, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has identified nationally accepted standards, from careful use of antibiotics to preserve their usefulness, to aspirin on arrival for heart attack patients. These standards have been used to develop “quality measures” that hospitals, physician offices, nursing homes and home health agencies can use to assess and improve delivery, quality and cost-effectiveness of health care. Since 1993, AFMC has used these measures in its work for Medicare, and we use a similar system in our work for Arkansas Medicaid.
AFMC’s quality improvement specialists work mainly with health care providers in:
Specific staff members are dedicated to each setting, with clinical experience and administrative insight into the intricacies of that setting. These team members provide consultation and troubleshooting, as well as regional conferences and continuing education opportunities. These efforts have opened many doors for Arkansas health care, including:
- Better quality of care
- More efficient adminstrative processes
- Lower costs
- Improved outcomes for patients
AFMC staff members also work together to develop tools that help health care providers communicate with patients and ensure that critical steps are not missed. The tools are free for health care providers and can be ordered here.
To find out more our quality improvement projects, call 1-877-375-5700 or e-mail hcqipdirector@afmc.org. In working with AFMC, you'll be helping to raise the standard of health care in Arkansas and beyond.