Patient Safety 

Various groups of health care providers have been targeted to work with the New Mexico Medical Review Association (NMMRA) on several National Patient Safety Initiative (NPSI) projects. NPSI, sponsored by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), is designed to help providers ensure that people with Medicare receive safe, high quality health care by addressing specific areas of potential patient harm. In addition to working with select hospitals and nursing homes in New Mexico during the next three years, NMMRA will work with stakeholders and professional organizations interested in patient safety to achieve the goals of the NPSI projects.

Several NPSI projects continue the important work that has engaged providers and NMMRA for several years:

• Inpatient surgical care and heart failure improvement
• Nursing home pressure ulcer management
• Reduction in use of physical restraints in nursing homes
• Drug safety

New projects have been added to address such important patient safety issues as:

• Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infection
• Tansmission and pressure ulcer prevention in hospitals

NMMRA will also provide technical assistance for a select number of nursing homes to correct deficiencies that have been identified by the state's long-term care survey agency and will work with a select group of nursing homes and hospitals to conduct patient safety culture and leadeship surveys.

Patient safety information and resources for hospitals and nursing homes are available in NMMRA's Focus on Patient Safety newsletters and on NMMRA's Materials and Tools Web page (Patient Safety). For more about QIO patient safety and other CMS QIO projects, go to the Medicare Quality Improvement Community (MedQIC) Web site.

For more on QIO patient safety efforts in New Mexico, contact us.