PROVIDENCE – Quality Partners of Rhode Island, which since 1995 has worked with health care providers, payers and policymakers to improve quality across the health care system, held its first public annual meeting March 18, aiming to bring its work to a broader audience.
The event – which included a keynote address by Lt. Gov. Elizabeth H. Roberts, on her health care reform package – drew more than 120 people to the Providence Marriott Downtown.
In addition, the nonprofit distributed an annual report that featured a case study from each major setting in which it operates – nursing homes, physician offices, hospitals and home health agencies, and it gave a presentation on the wide range of projects it is involved in.
Quality Partners was created to be the state’s Medicare Quality Improvement Organization, taking a systems-focused, collaborative approach to quality improvement through shared learning and partnerships with providers.
The nonprofit oversees care delivered by providers to Medicare beneficiaries in Rhode Island through measurement and reporting of performance. It collaborates with hospitals, nursing homes, home health agencies and physicians to improve care. And it promotes quality improvement statewide through partnerships with a focus on information technology.
In addition to major local projects such as the Rhode Island Intensive Care Unit Collaborative – which has brought all the state’s ICUs together to reduce infections and promote a “culture of safety” (READ MORE) – Quality Partners now works on a national scale, serving, among other things, as the national Medicare Nursing Home Support Center and as Medicare’s lead resource agency for the Advancing Excellence Campaign, a national nursing-home quality initiative.
For fiscal year 2007, Quality Partners registered revenue of $5.58 million from state, federal and other sources, while expending $4.43 million in programs and $1.05 million in general and administrative costs.
Quality Partners of Rhode Island is the health-care quality improvement organization for Rhode Island, as designated by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. For more information, visit www.riqualitypartners.org.
