Virginia Department of Health

Top Flex Activities

CAH Quality Improvement

Virginia Rural Hospital Coaching Collaborative (VRHCC)

Historically, the VRHCC has been offered as a Small Hospital Improvement Program (SHIP) program menu option, which gives rural hospitals the opportunity to network, share, and implement strategies for quality, financial, and operational improvement through evidence-based coaching. In Fiscal Year (FY) 20, the Flex Program, in partnership with the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association Foundation (VHHAF) will be implementing the collaborative as a Flex programmatic activity, which will be offered to SHIP participating hospitals as well. The need-based education is directly stemmed from an online QI needs assessment conducted in Q1; in addition to one-on-one calls with CAH and SHIP hospitals. The FY20 VRHCC offers rural hospitals an opportunity for peer sharing and learning, access to subject matter expert (SME) coaching and resources. This year's collaborative will focus on Building a Crisis Proof Culture, and provide the following offerings to hospitals:

• At least four virtual leadership workshops focused on patient/family experience, quality, and patient safety improvement opportunities
• 1:1 individual hospital coaching calls as needed
• Coaching from expert consultants to impact specific quality and patient safety improvement opportunities you identified in your needs assessment
• Peer-to-peer networking and learning from other rural hospitals
• Educational offerings to achieve performance improvements in quality, patient safety, infection prevention, employee wellness, and accreditation/regulatory requirements as identified in your completed needs assessments
• Free enrollment registration to the 2022 VHHA IHI Open School Quality & Patient Safety Basic Certificate Program
• Free registration to attend the 2022 VHHA Patient Safety Summit

MBQIP Dashboards

Aligning with the goal of increasing quality reported data, and then driving quality improvement activities based on data, the Virginia Flex Program will be investing in Medicare Beneficiary Quality Improvement Project (MBQIP) interactive dashboards. The MBQIP dashboards will drill down the measures to the hospital level and benchmark amongst the state averages and the national benchmarks (90th percentile). The dashboards will be updated quarterly as the FMT reports are distributed by the Flex Program Project Officer. This activity was identified as a need by the lack of forward progress or improvement in many of the MBQIP quality measures.

Antibiotic Stewardship & Addressing Health-Acquired Inflections (HAI) Webinar Series & Site Visits

The Flex Program is collaborating with the Virginia Department of Health (VDH), Division of Surveillance and Investigations (DSI) and Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAI), and the Antimicrobial Resistance Program to host a webinar series around Antibiotic Stewardship and Healthcare Acquired Infections. HAI stakeholders, such as the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association Foundation (VHHAF), Virginia Quality Improvement Organization, and Healthcare Quality Innovators, will be invited to observe and participate. The webinars will be conducted every other month and participation will be open to both the critical access hospitals (CAHs) and small rural hospitals throughout the Commonwealth, as a way for like-hospitals to network and share resources and best practices.

During the Virginia General Assembly, HB1570 was passed, requiring healthcare facilities, including ambulatory surgery centers, CAHs, dialysis facilities, long-term acute care facilities, inpatient rehabilitation facilities, and inpatient psychiatric facilities, to report HIAs to VDH. To ensure CAHs have the capability to report HAIs, as well as implement effective strategies to combat HAI, the Program Antimicrobial Resistance Coordinator and HAI Epidemiologist will be visiting two CAHs a year to conduct an in-depth onsite analysis of the hospitals’ antibiotic stewardship programs, procedures, and processes. The hospital will receive a pre-visit survey/assessment that will provide the HAI team insight on current processes. The team will conduct a facility tour and key-person interviews. After the site visit, the HAI program team will present the hospital with a report containing their findings and follow-up action plan. Concluding each program year, they survey and reach out to their CAHs for constructive feedback and initiate a process improvement lens to their activities.

CAH Operational and Financial Improvement

Virginia CAH Financial Indicator Scorecard

Aligning with the goal of improving financial and operational performance, the Virginia Flex Program will be creating a financial scorecard utilizing the top nine rural-relevant hospital financial indicators identified by the National Rural Health Resource Center. Using the Virginia CAHs Medicare Cost Report data, the financial scorecards will drill down the financial indicators to the hospital level and benchmark amongst the state average and the national benchmark (90th percentile). The scorecard will be updated annually and will be used to readily identify opportunities for improvement, training, and resources for CAH-specific financial and/or operational improvement.

Charge Description Master (CDM) Review 

Over the past year, the Commonwealth of Virginia has expanded Medicaid and passed HB1700, increased reimbursement for Virginia CAHs in July 2019. In order to ensure the Virginia CAHs are foundationally set to maximize their financial performance, they will participate in the Strategic Pricing Program, which will provide hospitals with a comprehensive review of their respective CDM.  Hospitals will be able to use the secure web-based portal and applications to update charge levels based on quarterly updates from the American Medical Association (AMA) to maintain defensible, market-driven prices for new and existing service lines and procedures.

Medicare Cost Report Analysis

This activity was developed to help Virginia CAH chief Financial Officers (CFOs) minimize errors in their Medicare Cost Reports and adopt accounting principles that optimize reimbursement consistent with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' (CMS) rules and regulations. Six of the seven Virginia CAHs have merged with larger urban-based health systems that provide centralized administration, including financial and operational oversight. To ensure the cost report is done with a rural lens, the Virginia Flex Program will provide this activity as a platform to identify an initial portfolio of financial improvement opportunities and needed resources. They survey and reach out to their CAHs for constructive feedback and initiate a process improvement lens to our activities annually.

Specialty Integration into Rural Health Clinics (RHCs) and related projects

Stroudwater Associates will use FY20 to develop and mature the Virginia Rural Health Clinic network and work to integrate current projects with the existing CAH network activities. Potential projects include, and are not limited to:

• Practice Operational assessments
• Limited Operational assessments
• Payor Contract reviews

CAH Population Health Improvement

Population Health 101 Webinar and Population Health Strategic Planning

In Virginia, their goal for addressing population health is to understand root causes, such as the societal factors causing the high rate of diabetes. Fiscal Year (FY)21 will be used to create community profiles for the Virginia CAHs. The community profiles will include social risk factors of health measures/metrics to assist CAHs with CHNAs and other population health-related activities.

Although many community-specific needs are identified in their hospitals' community health needs assessments (CHNAs), to sustain and achieve healthier communities, they must understand the underlying socio-economic determinants and address root causes. There will be an attempt for programmatic alignment with the Commonwealth’s state-wide Healthy Virginia initiative, but the Flex Program’s priority is to support CAH community-level activities and provide targeted resources that align with their identified needs. 

Rural Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Improvement

CAH & Regional EMS Site Visits, Assessment & Findings

The Virginia Flex Program and the Virginia Office of EMS, Community Health and Technical Resources (CHaTR) division will collaborate to: 

• Conduct a pre-visit review of previously completed assessments and recommendations
• Conduct formal interviews with various stakeholders of the EMS System in the CAH-specific county, as well as the CAH County 911 Coordinator
• Conduct formal interviews with CAH staff, including the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Emergency Department Clinical Coordinator
• Conduct formal interviews with local EMS agencies

These interviews will be held to gather information regarding the relationship between the CAH and the EMS System, and vice versa, as well as to determine the capabilities of both. After the site visit, the Office of EMS CHaTR division will provide the CAHs & EMS system leaders with a report of findings, recommendations, and follow-up action planning.

Please provide information about network activities in your state to support Flex Program activities.

The Virginia Flex Program's network activities include:

• Rural Hospital Coaching Collaborative
• Partnership for a Healthy Virginia
• Virginia Rural Hospital Association
• Rural Center for Virginia
• Mid-Atlantic Telehealth Resource Center
• Southern Virginia Partnership for Health Sciences Center

Please describe how your state Flex Program is reaching out to non-traditional partners to support its work.

1FY 20, the Flex Program is reaching out and exploring potential relationships and collaborative activities that will not only provide guidance toward value-based purchasing (VBP) but also provide opportunities to address socio-economic root causes that lead to poor health outcomes.

Rural Workforce

• The flex program will be an active participant in regional rural workforce development partnerships. These partnerships are bringing together cross-sector partners to address the upstream healthcare workforce needs of their communities.

Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond & CDFIs

• Community development financial institutions (CDFIs) are private financial institutions that are 100% dedicated to delivering responsible, affordable lending to help low-income, low-wealth, and other disadvantaged people and communities join the economic mainstream

Social Finance

• Working with the state Medicaid/Medicare agency to create opportunities for rural healthcare facilities such as enhancement payments for services, incentive programs for healthcare providers/medical students
• Exploring Pay for Success-type projects, Outcomes-based scorecards, and risk-based contracting for our rural facilities

Program Statistics