This month I am pleased to welcome Dawn FitzGerald, CEO of Qsource, sharing insights and information about the organization that provides boots-on-the-ground training, education and technical assistance, so nursing home staff and administrators have the tools they need to provide consistent quality care while ensuring their facilities are in compliance with state and federal requirements.
With the return of regular surveys, new CDC guidelines for infection control in nursing homes, the staffing crisis and CMS compliance programs, it is critical your organization has a trusted partner of seasoned experts from the long-term care industry who know how to approach complex and difficult situations.
Dawn and Ann Lewis, Executive Director of Business Development at Qsource, visited the Adelman Law Firm for an all-day strategic planning and consulting session focused on how we can best serve our long term care clients. Qsource helps nursing homes with rapid response, regulatory compliance and quality and process improvement. Adelman Law Firm strives to create valued partnerships and collaborations to support our clients and the long-term care industry with proactive litigation and risk mitigation. That’s the Adelman Advantage.
Rebecca: Dawn, tell us about Qsource, its history and a current overview of its service area and offerings?
Qsource (www.qsource.org) is a nonprofit organization that helps healthcare providers of all types improve outcomes is particularly experienced in all aspects of long-term care and nursing home quality improvement.
Since 1973, Qsource has served as a federally funded Medicare quality improvement organization. The organization’s role has evolved with changing healthcare practitioner needs which now includes such expert services as program compliance, workflow assessment, quality measures, data abstraction and reporting, health information technology, and practice transformation.
With staff and partnerships located throughout several states, we live and work in the communities we serve. The nursing homes we work with are the same communities we rely on to care for our own families. You can find Qsource in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska and Tennessee
Qsource quality improvement teams work hand-in-hand with healthcare professionals to assist in coaching, training, and provider-based quality measurement and compliance. Our latest initiative, the Culture of Safety Center (CSC), supports Tennessee nursing homes by promoting the adoption of best practices via a statewide collaboration.
This year, our NH team began offering rapid response training (RRT) as a service directly to nursing homes who find themselves in need of assistance in responding to a compliance emergency such as immediate jeopardy, significant fines and potential closure.
What does Qsource see as the central regulatory challenges facing nursing homes?
Compliance with the state and federal regulations and the increased scrutiny on corporate governance and maintaining resident and staff safety is the central challenges. More specifically, the most common citations and compliance issues related to Infection Prevention and Control (F880), Free of Accidents and Hazards (F689), Develop and Implement a Comprehensive Care Plan (F656), Quality of Care (F684), Pressure Ulcers (F686), Sufficient and Competent Staff (F741) and the Compliance and Ethics Training (F946).
Also, the intersection of guidance between CMS, OIG and CDC creates a complexity of compliance issues. On September 10, the CDC supplemented updates for Infection Control in Nursing Homes. Also, compliance program mandates were updated as a Condition for Participation to Medicare and Medicaid. While there are fewer compliance-related FTags, nursing homes must consider the OIG and Compliance and Supplemental Program Guidance, HHS commentary and other sources for compliance. “It’s complicated”.
What services can Qsource offer to nursing homes?
Despite best efforts, sometimes care delivery falls below expectations, resulting in complaints, fines, tags, lawsuits, or decreased patient safety scores. Qsource’s post-acute Rapid Response Team (RRT) identifies the root cause of performance or harm events, remedies fines, and develops a sustainability plan to assure the same issues do not occur again. Qsource also supports risk mitigation using mock surveys and fine/harm-prevention assessments to eliminate any potential issues that could result in delinquency or poor performance. Thus far, we have prevented facilities from closing, reduced fines more than $500,000 year-over-year, and ensured continued payments from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for new admissions.
What makes Qsource different from other consulting organizations?
As a nonprofit organization, Qsource provides high-quality support at a reasonable cost, with practical, realistic solutions and plans for ongoing improvement sustainability. Our staff includes former nursing home leaders, clinical professionals and quality improvement specialists who can provide onsite expertise to identify and resolve potential issues before they occur and to quickly remedy tags or citations that have already occurred. Our RRT services, for example, identify and implement tactics that quickly address significant citations and quality concerns, and we help facilities develop an effective written response. We have helped some facilities reduce fines in nursing homes by as much as 50%. Qsource’s support does not end here. Qsource helps with process improvement and proactive initiatives to mitigate risks and identify other vulnerabilities that may translate into quality of care issues later. Solving to those vulnerabilities is a key mission for Qsource.
What’s the additional value of collaboration with Qsource ?
In addition to Qsource’s RRT services, support from Qsource is also available for free online and as a participant in one of our many long-term care initiatives, such as the Culture of Safety Center and our COVID-19 infection-prevention best practices which address the CDC’s new COVID infection prevention and control guidance for nursing homes. These resources include:
Webinars with nationally recognized experts
Annual summits highlighting nursing homes that support a culture of safety
Peer-to-peer interventional support to low-performing nursing homes and those most in need based on state surveyor and other publicly reported outcomes
Local clinical, quality, and pharmacologic expertise in mitigating risk
Coordination, facilitation, tracking, and organizing individual quality initiatives
Best practices and templates for Quality Assurance and Performance Improvement (QAPI)
For more information and resources, please visit Qsource’s website: www.qsource.org/nursing-assistance/.
Adelman Law Firm is collaborating with Qsource on initiatives that will support our clients and improve quality of care and quality of life as well as address staffing issues and other potential barriers to quality outcomes. Stay tuned for more information!
If you have questions or need assistance related Qsource or quality and process improvement, please contact us. Ms. Adelman can be reached at rebeccca@adelmanfirm.com.
If you have questions or think your facility and residents could benefit from Qsource’s assistance, please contact Ann Lewis at alewis@qsource.org or call 615-574-7206.
