Rural Healthcare Quality Network

Programs: The medical staff quality assurance program is based on a centers for medicare and medicaid services mandate for external peer review of patient charts in rural hospitals. This process requires that an external physician review a sample of all completed patient charts at least quarterly. Findings must be shared with facility administration, quality improvement department leadership, and/or the medical staff. Incumbent in this program is continuing medical education associated with medical best practice, medical error reduction, and improvement of the quality of care. The medical quality assurance program of the rhqn employs or contracts with physicians to deliver external peer chart review, facility medical staff and administration consultation, and continuing medical education.

support of effective and efficient care coordination infrastructure to strengthen rural delivery systems. During 2014, this involved three main projects: 1) medicare hospital compare reporting - support critical access hospitals (cahs) in publicly reporting data to hospital compare on relevant inpatient and outpatient care quality measures and patient care experience survey results; 2) rhqn "just culture" survey and training; and3) improve washington state cah participation in hospital consumer assessment of health providers and systems, a federal program for measuring hospital patient satisfaction.

the rhqn performance improvement initiative utilizes appropriate expertise to develop, test, and disseminate training tools to participating members. The initiative utilizes regional forums, video or web-based conferencing, and on-site training to ensure participating members understand and are prepared to meet new requirements imposed by the legislature.

the hospital engagement networks (hen) program facilitates critical access hospitals in washington state to work with the university of nebraska medical center's nebraska center for rural health research.