Kansas Flex State Profile

Quality Health Indicators
A multi-state benchmarking project designed for small rural hospitals to compare selected measures with other similar hospitals. Kansas critical access hospitals (CAHs) can compare data and share best practices not only among themselves, but with CAHs in all participating states.

Collection to Action Collation Project
Partnership with the Kansas Foundation for Medical Care to improve CAH participation in reporting data consistently to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and CAHs’ performance in the Medicare Beneficiary Quality Improvement Project (MBQIP) measures. Based on the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) collaborative model, training focus on accurate data abstraction/submission; development of provider common knowledge base for basic quality improvement, review and action planning.

Outpatient Chronic Disease Quality of Care Project
The Kansas Flex Program has partnered with the Bureau of Health Promotion to implement chronic disease quality of care initiative for CAHs with rural health clinics. Project goal: improve the health of people with diabetes by transforming a system into one that is proactive. As part of that process the Chronic Disease Electronic Management System (CDEMS) is used to collect patient and clinic level data to monitor diabetes quality of care indicators. A pre-diabetes pilot program launched to identify pre-diabetic patients using CDEMS data.

CAH Leadership PI Initiative
Through a partnership with the Kansas Hospital Association an interactive performance improvement training program aimed at supporting CAH administrators in improving quality, financial, and/or operational aspects of their hospital has been developed. Approximately 10-15 hospitals will participle in this initiative over a 9-12 month period.

Quality Health Indicator (QHI) benchmarking of financial metrics.
The QHI project is a multi-state benchmarking project designed for small rural hospitals to compare selected measures with other similar hospitals.

Improve Financial Performance - Revenue Cycle Improvement Initiative
Phase 1: The Revenue Cycle Assessment project with Nevada Rural Hospital Partnership was completed in 2012. The Revenue Cycle Assessment project measured individual hospital revenue cycle practices against revenue cycle best practices and results in a gap analysis for each hospital and an aggregate gap analysis for the population of participating critical access hospitals (CAHs).

Phase 2: Multiple state-wide training series focused on one or several related elements of revenue cycle management. Each training series will include in-person workshop, on-line review course, and webinars. Each series focuses on one or several related elements of revenue cycle management based on the aggregate findings from Phase 1. The two areas of most focus will be denials and third party payer management, as well as front-end patient processes, including financial counseling and point of service collections.

Phase 3: Revenue Cycle Financial Improvement Collaborative. This initiative will be aimed at offering targeted technical assistance to participating CAHs in improving specific elements of the hospital’s revenue cycle management process. In 2013, a pilot project will be implemented with small number of hospitals who participated in Phase 1. Project design is still in development.

The Kansas Flex Program developed a partnership with the Kansas Medical Society and its Emergency Medical System (EMS) Medical Directors Association to design EMS model protocols for the time critical diseases which includes; stroke, trauma, and segment elevation myocardial infarction (stemi). These protocols will be submitted to the Kansas Board of EMS’ Medical Advisory Committee for review and approval.

Working with the State Trauma Program to:

• Supporting the training of rural health providers optimal trauma care including: Advanced Trauma Life Support Trauma, Trauma Nurse Core Course, and Pre-Hospital Trauma Life Support.
• Providing support to each Regional Trauma Councils to offset the cost of Rural Trauma Team Development Course (RTTDC) training sessions in all six regions.
• Educating critical access hospitals (CAHs) about the state’s new Level IV Trauma Center designation and provide technical assistance for interested CAHs.

Lastly, the Kansas Rural Community Engagement/Health Assessment Initiative is aimed at building local capacity to engage community leaders and conduct community health assessments. Small sub-contracts are awarded to eligible rural communities to help cover costs related to engaging local community leaders in community health assessment activities and collaboration between the local health department and critical access hospitals.