This year's Quality Conference in Hot Springs was a huge success with over 400 registrants. The conference hosted attendees from multiple health care settings and featured national speakers on various health care quality improvement topics. A specal thank you to all those that attended.
For your convenience, the following has been posted to our website:
The 2012 Quality Award winners are now listed with photos (if present). Click here to see this year's winners.
Presentations from speakers who have allowed us to post their material are available here.
Click here for photos from both days of this year's conference.
This year’s conference focused on CMS’ new national aims:
Improving individual patient care. This includes working with hospitals to reduce health acquired infections such as central line bloodstream infections and with nursing homes to reduce health-acquired conditions such as pressure ulcers, falls and urinary tract infections. It also means creating collaboratives between pharmacists, physicians and facilities to reduce adverse drug events.
Improve Health for Populations and Communities. The goal is to promote physician office use of electronic health records to coordinate preventive services and report quality measures to CMS and reduce risk factors for cardiac disease.
Integrate Care for Populations and Communities. This involves bringing together hospitals, nursing homes, patient advocacy organizations and other stakeholders in community coalitions. The goals center on building capacity for improving care transitions.
Deliver Beneficiary and Family Centered Care. This includes education on Medicare beneficiary rights, promotion of preventive services and working together for better health and health care.
Purpose Statement:
The theme of the 19th annual Quality Conference -- “Team Oriented. Patient Centered. Quality Focused.” -- supports The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ national quality strategy to achieve better health care, better health for people and communities and affordable care through lowering cost by improvement. The conference aims to facilitate exchange of information within Arkansas’s health care system along with dissemination of best practices through outreach, education and social marketing. The Quality Conference provides opportunities to engage with beneficiaries, health care providers and stakeholders in an effort to produce the best possible care throughout every community in Arkansas.