University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine

Nevada State Flex Program

What is one Core Competency your state Flex Program is working on developing through Flex activities?

Core Competency: Building and Sustaining Partnerships

The Nevada Flex Program has continually focused on the “Building and Sustaining Partnerships” core competency as a vital aspect of providing essential and meaningful assistance to Nevada critical access hospitals (CAHs). Meetings are convened on a regular basis with hospital administrators, quality and risk professionals, financial directors, human resource directors, infection preventionists, and more. These meetings provide a forum for strategic planning, training and education, peer-to-peer networking, development of best practices, and more. To provide the most beneficial support, the Nevada Flex Program partners with other organizations to ensure adequate funding for experts and consultants to guide hospital staff. The Nevada Flex Program also routinely visits the critical access hospitals in order to understand the unique needs of each facility and its surrounding community. Finally, the Nevada Flex Program staff have developed collaborative relationships with key stakeholders at the state and federal levels to foster open lines of communication. Regular engagement with organizations such as the Nevada Hospital Association, and the Nevada Division of Public and Behavioral Health have proven to be invaluable to advancing the goals of the Nevada Flex Program and the critical access hospitals. 

What is one activity your state is funding through SHIP?

The Nevada SHIP Program has a strong focus on Medicare Beneficiary Quality Improvement Project (MBQIP) reporting and improvement. As such, a key activity has been the onsite education and training provided to each small, rural hospital in Nevada. Through collaboration with the Nevada Flex Program, hospital staff are provided with a robust network of support to help them remain consistent in reporting compliance. The Nevada SHIP Program then aims to provide the hospitals with targeted training through the use of comparison charts and an in-person quality expert to ultimately improve MBQIP scores. In addition to individual MBQIP measures, the hospitals are also provided with training in areas such as Quality Assurance and Performance Improvement (QAPI) as a systematic approach to using quality indicators to increase patient safety. Additionally, as part of the educational site visits, hospitals that are implementing very effective best practices are asked to share those with the group, and sometimes mentoring relationships are established so that more advanced quality staff can provide even more training to the more inexperienced facilities.