The Hospital Quality Improvement Contractor (HQIC) program began in September 2020 when the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) contracted with TMF Health Quality Institute to support qualifying hospitals to improve health care outcomes for rural, medically underserved and vulnerable populations. The overarching goals for the four-year initiative included improving behavioral health outcomes, increasing patient safety and enhancing the quality of care transitions.
TMF and its hospital partners worked together to identify quality improvement opportunities and solutions. HQIC members accessed on-demand educational webinars, topic-specific affinity groups, a robust website with over 2,400 hospital-specific resources and more than 5,800 hours of direct technical assistance.
The 181 hospitals participating in the TMF HQIC program exceeded all of the initiative’s core measure outcome goals, resulting in more than 310 lives saved, over 2,100 patient harms avoided and a savings of more than $43 million in health care costs. [Download our fact sheet (PDF) to learn more.]
The TMF HQIC team is grateful for the opportunity to work with our HQIC hospitals to improve the effectiveness, efficiency, economy and quality of services delivered to patients. Your hard work every day to provide safe and reliable care remains our ongoing inspiration.
As TMF prepares to continue working with CMS on hospital quality improvement, program resources will be available on tmfnetworks.org. Please visit our Partnership for Community Health or Patient and Family Engagement webpages for information, or email HQIC@tmf.org with questions.