The MU Sinclair School of Nursing announced Wednesday it will receive $19.8 million to advance the Missouri Quality Initiative for Nursing Homes. Sponsored by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, the grant will enable nursing school researchers to study new ways to improve health care for older patients.
The Missouri Quality Initiative for Nursing Homes, or MOQI, began in 2012 with an initial CMS grant award of $14.8 million. The program is a collaboration between MU, federal and state Medicaid agencies, and 16 Missouri nursing homes, which aims to minimize hospitalizations among nursing home patients. By using proactive prevention measures to identify and treat common health problems, the program has reported an increase in the quality of patient care and decreases in hospitalizations at participating nursing homes.
“CMS recognized our major accomplishments in reducing potentially avoidable hospitalizations by 39 percent, saving CMS millions of dollars,” said Judith Fitzgerald Miller, dean of the Sinclair School of Nursing.
With the new funding, MOQI will begin assessing the Medicare payment model for nursing homes and how it influences patient care.
Marilyn Rantz, MU professor emeritus of nursing, leads the MOQI initiative. She said that hospitals generally receive greater Medicare payments than nursing homes for the same services. A hospital treating a patient with pneumonia can bill CMS for $203. A nursing home treating a patient for pneumonia can only bill $136. Rantz said this disparity in payments can lead nursing homes to hospitalize patients who could have been offered quality care at the home.
Under the new grant, CMS agreed to increase the amount paid to MOQI nursing homes for onsite treatment. Rantz and the team of MOQI researchers will determine whether the increased payments incentivize onsite treatment, reducing nursing homes’ hospitalization rates.
MU interim Chancellor Hank Foley said the grant funding will improve patient care at nursing care facilities nationwide, but the MOQI project will benefit Missouri health care in particular.
Foley said the grant represented “Missouri taxpayer money that went to Washington and came back to Missouri”—a boon for the university’s researchers and their collaborators on the MOQI project.
Students in the Sinclair School of Nursing also benefit from the learning experiences offered through this patient health initiative. Nursing students provide the nursing care at TigerPlace, a Columbia retirement living facility, where they practice proactive patient care.
MU nursing student Katie Hollon is conducting her geriatric clinical rotation at TigerPlace. She said students are taught to provide personal, individualized care, allowing them to recognize and prevent patient health challenges.
“It’s all about assessing patients, making sure that we’re providing thorough care, and recognizing when there’s a problem or an issue going on so that it can be addressed quickly,” Hollon said.
Rantz said the patience and persistence of the MOQI team has paid off, resulting in the new CMS grant funding and measurable improvements to patient care at Missouri nursing homes.
“The whole point is to ensure that when you need a nursing home, things work really well, and you get good quality care,” Rantz said. “That’s our objective, and that’s been the result of this work.”
