MetroHealth Care Plus: Effects Of A Prepared Safety Net On Quality Of Care In A Medicaid Expansion Population.

Studies of Medicaid expansion have produced conflicting results about whether the expansion is having a positive impact on health and the cost and efficiency of care delivery. To explore the issue further, we examined MetroHealth Care Plus, a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) waiver program in Ohio composed of three safety-net organizations that enrolled 28,295 uninsured poor patients in closed-panel care during 2013. All participating organizations used electronic health records and patient-centered medical homes, publicly reported performance in a regional health improvement collaborative, and accepted a budget-neutral cap approved by CMS.

Approaches to quality improvement in nursing homes: lessons learned from the six-state pilot of CMS's Nursing Home Quality Initiative.

Background: In November 2002, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) launched a Nursing Home Quality Initiative that included publicly reporting a set of Quality Measures for all nursing homes in the country, and providing quality improvement assistance to nursing homes nationwide. A pilot of this initiative occurred in six states for six months prior to the launch.

Methods: Review and analysis of the lessons learned from the six Quality Improvement Organizations (QIOs) that led quality improvement efforts in nursing homes from the six pilot states.

Cardioprotection in the ESRD Population: How Do We Get There?

Cardiovascular mortality for end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients is about 30 times the risk in the general population. About 30% of ESRD patients have hyperlipidemia. The 1998 National Kidney Foundation Task Force on Cardiovascular Disease recommends implementation of effective measures to prevent and treat cardiovascular disease in this population.