Quality Assurance
and Quality Improvement in Home and Community Based Services
CONNECTICUT
Grant Information
Name of Grantee
Connecticut
Department of Mental Retardation
Title of Grant
Connecticut Quality Review and Improvement
Type of Grant
Quality
Assurance and Quality Improvement in Home and Community Based Services
Amount of Grant
$499,000
Year Original Funding
Received
2003
Expected Completion Date
September
2007
Contact Information
Beth McArthur, Project Co-Director
860-418-6132
beth.mcarthur@po.state.ct.us
Laura Nuss, Project
Co-Director
460 Capitol Avenue
Hartford, CT 06016
860-418-6130
laura.nuss@po.state.ct.us
Subcontractor(s)
Cynthia Gruman, Ph.D.,
Assistant Professor of Medicine
University of Connecticut Health Center
Center on Aging
263 Farmington Avenue
Farmington, CT 06030
860-679-7960
gruman@uchc.edu
CGI-AMS
Greater Boston Area
600 Federal Street
Andover, MA 01810
978-946-3647
www.cgi-ams.com
Target Population(s)
All people served by the Connecticut Department of
Mental Retardation (DMR).
Goals
- Develop the capacity
to input, store, analyze, and report quality indicators from the
Department's new quality review system.
- Ensure and improve
quality for individuals living in their own or family homes.
- Involve individuals
and their families in defining, determining, and improving quality.
- Develop and provide a
wide range of training activities for various participant users of the new
quality system.
Activities
- Develop browser-based
technology to enable secure, real-time data entry and access to DMR
applications.
- Design additional data
management systems and modify existing systems to incorporate new quality
indicators for analysis, reporting, and follow-up functions.
- Establish a
methodology to risk-adjust data, establish valid benchmarks, and analyze
quality and incident data to identify patterns, trends, and variables that
predict risk.
- Develop new or revise
all current DMR policies and procedures related to participant safeguards.
- Develop multimedia
materials in English and Spanish to support education activities, and
provide home safety and emergency preparedness information and resources
to individuals and families.
- Establish a Self
Advocate Leadership Institute that will develop consumer skills to
participate in the Department's quality initiatives.
- Create a Self Advocate
Speaker Bureau, and establish Family and Individual Networks to support
self-determination.
- Identify areas for
training and technical assistance to improve quality review techniques and
service enhancements.
- Train families and
individuals who are managing their own services to effectively use
enhanced Web-based recruitment tools to find potential employees, and to
use local emergency backup staff arrangements.
Abstract
The Connecticut DMR is using Real Choice Grant
funding to strengthen its quality review system by developing data applications
to provide more timely, accurate, integrated, and comprehensive information
that will identify trends and provide a foundation for improvement initiatives.
The grant project also includes activities to involve consumers and family
members in the design, implementation, and evaluation of DMR's
new quality review and improvement system. As part of this effort, DMR will
establish state-level review teams and regional and statewide quality
improvement councils with consumer and family membership. Self-advocates will
also be involved in a Leadership Institute, which will train them to assume
influential roles in the quality system. The planned outcomes of this grant
include
- a
fully operational quality data management system.
- a
risk adjustment methodology to compare provider performance fairly against
established benchmarks for various quality indicators.
- quality
indicators for safety and emergency preparedness and a review of
methodologies for people who direct supports in their own or family homes.
- quality
review and improvement mechanisms that incorporate meaningful roles for
consumers and families.
- more
knowledgeable and informed consumers and families who are influential in
improving HCBS waivers and self-direction options in Connecticut.