Higher quality healthcare services for every Oklahoman is the aim of Oklahoma Foundation for Medical Quality’s (OFMQ) new three-year quality improvement initiative, officially launching today. OFMQ, the quality improvement organization (QIO) in Oklahoma, announced it has engaged hospitals, physician practices, nursing homes and home health agencies in a partnership to transform healthcare quality and create a system in which every person receives the right care every time.  The program is part of a $1.265 billion national commitment with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the federal agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  Through its contract with CMS, OFMQ provides expert resources and quality improvement tools at no cost to providers.  
 
“Embarking on this journey with Oklahoma healthcare providers and stakeholders represents OFMQ’s ongoing commitment to improving healthcare and improving lives in Oklahoma,” said Jim Williams, OFMQ President and CEO.  “We have a long history—over a quarter-century—of successful relationships with healthcare providers, and we share their priority of ensuring the highest caliber of care for their patients.  Together, our efforts have resulted in quantifiable improvements in the quality of healthcare services delivered to Oklahoma’s citizens,” he added.    
 
Over the next three years, OFMQ has the following goals to help providers achieve transformational change in the quality of healthcare:

Hospital patients will be safer.  Working intensively with as many as 30% of Oklahoma’s hospitals, surgical care and inpatient care for heart attacks, heart failure, and pneumonia will improve. These efforts will help prevent post-operative pneumonia and surgery-related adverse cardiac events, as well as cutting the rate of surgical infections. The goal is to reduce surgical complications in these hospitals by 25%.

Hospital staff will reduce errors.  OFMQ will work with virtually all Oklahoma hospitals to help cut error rates in care for heart attack, pneumonia and heart failure in half.

• Doctors will have the best technology so they can improve patient care.  At least 60 primary care practices will receive assistance from OFMQ to install and use electronic health information systems.  OFMQ will also work closely with at least 50 physicians to help improve chronic and preventive care while reducing healthcare disparities in racial and ethnic populations.
• Nursing home residents will live better, more comfortable lives. OFMQ will work with Oklahoma’s 353 nursing homes to reduce pressure ulcers, physical restraints, chronic pain and resident depression.  Additionally, 75 facilities have volunteered to participate in an aggressive program to improve resident and staff satisfaction and staff retention.
• Home health patients will recover more quickly.  Working with Oklahoma’s 204 home health agencies, OFMQ will reduce by half the number of preventable hospitalizations and ensure immunization screenings for all home health patients. Sixty-five agencies have volunteered in a program that also includes using telehealth technology and improving quality measures such as pain and shortness of breath.

“OFMQ has established a strong leadership position in the quality improvement arena in Oklahoma,” said Jerry Leu, MD, Norman Regional Hospital Vice President of Medical Affairs.   “We look forward to continuing our work with their dedicated team to improve the safety, efficiency and quality of care for Norman Regional patients.”  
 
Over the last three years, OFMQ fostered a commitment to quality improvement among healthcare providers and helped enable the following achievements:

• Oklahoma nursing homes achieved the 5th highest overall rate of improvement compared to all states in the nation, working in areas of chronic pain, pressure ulcers and late loss activities of daily living.  
• Sixty-one home health agencies across the state achieved statistically significant improvement in areas including difficulty breathing, acute care hospitalization, urinary incontinence, pain and use of emergency room care.  Twenty of those agencies were additionally recognized for exceptional commitment to quality improvement with Quality Excellence Awards. 
• Oklahoma hospitals achieved the 6th highest ranking in the nation with a 30% reduction in failure rate for work in 22 clinical measures covering heart attack, heart failure, surgical infection prevention and pneumonia. 
• OFMQ’s efforts with volunteer physician practices resulted in significant interventions to improve mammography rates, care for diabetics and adult immunizations.  Additionally, work began in November 2004 to help Oklahoma physicians implement health information technology (HIT) to improve patient care and formed the foundation for focused efforts to promote the adoption and use of HIT for the next three years. 

Also effective February 1, OFMQ was awarded a three-year contract to serve as the national support center for hospital quality improvement for CMS. The center supports hospital quality initiatives provided through CMS' nationwide network of QIOs.  The support center also coordinates a national Surgical Care Improvement Project (SCIP) and the Alliance for Cardiac Care Excellence (ACE).
 
For more information on Oklahoma Foundation for Medical Quality, please call (405) 840-2891.