Carmen Winston

Carmen Winston, MHSA, BSN, BA, currently serves as the Government Task Leader for the QIO Program’s Nursing Home Task at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

In that capacity, she is responsible for overseeing Quality Innovation Network-Quality Improvement Organizations’ (QIN-QIOs’) quality improvement activities with long-term care facilities.

Q. The CMS/QIN-QIO National Nursing Home Quality Care Collaborative is conducted to improve care for the millions of nursing home residents across the country. What were some of the successes achieved from the collaborative that was active from August 2011 through July 2014?

A. Our inaugural National Nursing Home Quality Care Collaborative (NNHQCC) was intended to bring together nursing homes for large-scale peer-to-peer learning. QIOs successfully recruited more than 5,000 nursing homes to participate in the 18-month collaborative, and homes continued to join right up until its conclusion. Our collaboratives are different; we are aware that not all nursing homes can attend in person, and homes wishing to participate are not excluded based on when they decide they are able to join the effort and commit to actively participating. Bringing together nursing home representatives to identify areas they wanted to work on helped foster deep involvement and desire to stick with the collaborative. Between 2011 and 2014, QIOs also contributed to the prevention or healing of 3,374 pressure ulcers in 787 nursing homes; helped 6,250 residents at 981 nursing homes become restraint free; and contributed with other partners to a 17.1 percent national reduction in antipsychotic medication usage rates at nursing homes.

To read the entire interview, please visit http://qioprogram.org/qionews/articles/long-term-care-qa-carmen-winston

Posted by QIO News