Quality Close to Home: A Preliminary Design for an Integrated Quality Management System

Announcing the Quality Close-to-Home Quality Management Systems Design Report

October 2006

The Department of Health and Family Services is pleased to share, Quality Close to Home: A Preliminary Design for an Integrated Quality Management System, a product of the Quality Close to Home (QCTH) project. During this project, from October 2003 to September 2006, local waiver staff, local managed-care staff, consumers, providers, state staff, consultants, and other stakeholders collaborated to:

• Define the scope of activities considered to be 'quality management;'
• Describe the challenges facing quality management activities in the home and community-based long-term care system;
• Identify the federal rules and regulations that must shape the quality management activities in federally-funded long-term care programs; and
• Describe a detailed vision for the activities that could comprise the core of an effective quality-management system for home and community based long-term care and how these responsibilities might be distributed in a system that efficiently integrates state and local efforts.

This report is intended to serve as a source of guidance, a basis for communication, and a reference for all the dedicated professionals, advocates, and consumers who will be involved in developing the specifications for and implementing quality-management practices for the emerging statewide system of managed long-term care. However, the report is not and cannot be a comprehensive or final prescription for an effective long-term care quality management system. Quality management practices will always be evolving and improving, and the details of the quality-management system for managed-care expansion will not be finalized until state and local policymakers have developed the specifications that will be included in waiver applications, contracts, and state and local policy documents relating to quality-management practices.

Full report:
Quality Close to Home: A Preliminary Design for an Integrated Quality Management System (PDF, 1.3 MB)

• Introduction (PDF, 76 KB)
• Parts I. - IV. (Pages 1-13; PDF, 103 KB)
  • Part I. Preface
  • Part II. What is Quality Management
  • Part III. Challenges in Quality Management System Design
  • Part IV. Federal Regulatory Framework for Quality Management
• Part V. Design and Operation of the Quality Management System (Pages 14-18; PDF, 165 KB)
• Part VI. Primary Discovery Methods (Pages 19-56; PDF, 941 KB)
• Part VII. - VIII. (Pages 57-67; PDF, 117 KB)
  • Part VII. The Fully Integrated Quality Management System 
  • Part VIII. Organization of Quality Management Functions
• Appendices (Pages 68-96; PDF, 225 KB)

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Last Revised: October 19, 2006