Iowa Foundation for Medical Care Sets New Goals to Transform Health Care Services in Iowa Through Partnerships with Providers

October 10, 2005

Today, the Iowa Foundation for Medical Care (IFMC) announced a new, three-year commitment with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the federal agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that runs Medicare, to improve the quality of health care for every person in Iowa.

IFMC, the Medicare Quality Improvement Organization (QIO) in Iowa, provides free expert resources to health care providers to improve quality of care and transform the way health care is delivered. The new effort with Medicare underscores the successes IFMC and Iowa providers have achieved in recent years, and sets new joint goals.

"IFMC has been working to improve health care in Iowa for more than 30 years. We know providers work every day to ensure the highest caliber of care to their patients, and that they share our goal of achieving the right care for every person every time," said Peg Mason, vice president, IFMC. "With this new commitment from CMS, we believe we can transform health care in our state. We will continue to work collaboratively with providers and share resources and proven best practices throughout the state to make our mutual goals a reality."

Over the next three years, IFMC will help providers achieve transformational change in the quality of health care in Iowa, for every person:

• Hospital patients will be safer. Working intensively with as many as 30 percent of all hospitals in Iowa, surgical care and inpatient care for heart attacks, heart failure, and pneumonia will improve. These efforts will involve preventing 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 percent.
• Hospital staff will learn how to better avoid errors. IFMC will help to cut error rates in half for heart attack, pneumonia and heart failure in selected hospitals.
• Nursing home residents will live better, more comfortable lives. At least 46 nursing homes will have the opportunity to work closely with IFMC to reduce pressure ulcers and physical restraints and better manage resident depression by 60 percent. IFMC will also assist these same facilities to retain staff.
• Doctors will have the best technology so they can best serve their patients. Assisting identified primary care physicians install and use electronic information systems, IFMC will help improve chronic and preventive care.
• Home health patients can recover more quickly. Reducing by half the number of preventable hospitalizations of home health patients, IFMC will work with at least 35 home health agencies.

Media Contact:
Deb Innis - (515) 440-8224