Dear Reader

This is an exciting time for all of us who work to improve health quality. Under the leadership of Administrator Dr. Donald Berwick, CMS is implementing Affordable Care Act provisions that are opening up new opportunities and encouraging innovative solutions for better care, better health and lower costs through improvement.

As I said in my remarks at the annual meeting of the American Health Quality Association last month, this situation reminds me of the Baltimore Orioles and the Washington Nationals. The QIO Program is like the O's. It has been around for a long time and still hits home runs–for example, every QIO in the country recently surpassed our goals for reducing patient restraints in nursing homes, which means greater safety, dignity and respect for residents.

The Partnership for Patients is like the Washington Nationals. It is new, and at first glance, some might wonder whether we need another major league team so close to the one we already have. But just like the O's and the Nats, which bring their own lineups and playbooks to the same game, in the same small region, there is room for both the Partnership and the Program in the broad field of health care quality improvement.  

Moving into the next phase of the Program, QIOs will be aligning their activities with Hospital Engagement Contractors and the care transitions programs funded by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation. These initiatives will test new approaches for delivering and paying for health services, while QIOs will bring the resulting best practices to the bedside.

To extend my baseball analogy a little bit further, you could say that QIOs will function almost like coaches. Great coaches apply what is known to improve performance, remove barriers to change, and support their team as it learns from experience and  adjusts its strategies. I am confident that by working together with providers in this fashion, the QIO Program will knock it out of the park, and patients will be the winners. 

Jean Moody-Williams, R.N., MPP
Director, Quality Improvement Group
Office of Clinical Standards and Quality
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services