Medicare Quality Improvement
in Arizona

As the Medicare Quality Improvement Organization (QIO) of Arizona, HSAG works with providers throughout the state to help achieve "transformational change" in health care, and to deliver the right care for every person every time. As a result of HSAG's collaborative efforts over the next three years (2005-2008), Arizonans can expect that:

• Hospital treatments will be safer, with fewer errors, resulting in fewer infections.
  
  
• Nursing homes will offer a more comfortable experience, with a schedule based on the residents’ needs.
  
  
• Receiving home health care will lead to a faster recovery and fewer hospitalizations.
  
  
• Physician offices will better meet their patients’ needs through the adoption of Health Information Technology.
  
  

HSAG employs four strategies to help Arizona providers transform the care they deliver. These four strategies are:

• Measuring and reporting performance: QIOs laid the foundation for public reporting of provider quality in the 7th Statement of Work. Reporting helps providers identify opportunities for improvement, track the progress of their changes and compare their performance against others.
  
  
• Adopting and effectively using information technology: Research strongly suggests that technologies such as electronic medical records, telehealth, computerized physician order entry systems and medication barcodes reduce errors and assist providers in making appropriate point-of-care decisions. QIOs will help providers select and best use these tools to improve patient outcomes.
  
  
• Redesigning care processes: QIOs will assist the health care community in placing patients at the center of their own care, using strategies borrowed from other industries. These changes will eliminate redundancies in care, allowing the system to redirect resources to areas requiring extra support.
  
  
• Changing organizational culture: QIOs will work with providers to foster an environment where senior leaders orient teams to quality through specific goals and performance assessment; where employees are empowered to look for potential problems and immediately fix mistakes; and where management teams that effectively recruit and promote successful teamwork continually seek to clarify roles and constantly learn from past experiences.
  
  

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