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April 2024

ACMA Conference, Nashville, TN

The American Case Management Association (ACMA) National Conference took place this year in Nashville, Tennessee. ACMA celebrated its 25th Anniversary this April. The event brought together over two thousand nurses, social workers, physicians, health plan and hospital professionals. The educational sessions featured presentations on various aspects of case management, utilization management and transitions of care. Sponsors of the conference included companies investing in revenue cycle, appeals, supplemental staffing, and case management / utilization management software.
Susan Stern attended the conference to network and develop new relationships and business opportunities. Networking at this conference provided Susan with the opportunity to meet potential customers and build recognition for Quality Health Partners’ services. Susan met with several leaders including hospital case management directors and vendors. Susan gained the latest information from several of the speakers on innovative approaches to system case management programs and improving hospital reimbursement.
Susan was invited to meet with the leadership of Xsolis and gained valuable intel on how Xsolis is changing the revenue cycle industry by automating utilization review, achieving a ROI with their AI software, and reducing insurance denials. Susan is currently involved in implementing Xsolis’s new upgraded artificial intelligence software at Presbyterian Health System. Susan was offered a complimentary pass to the Xsolis fall workshop where other hospital directors will be attending. The ACMA is a progressive association, and the time was well spent connecting with industry leaders.

April 2023

ACMA Conference, Washington DC

In April, Susan Stern, Quality Healthcare Partners, attended the ACMA Conference in Washington DC. In attendance was around 900 case managers and 200 vendors joined the ACMA Conference in Washington DC. Key topics included whole person care and policy advocacy. Attendees ranged from ACMA Chapter Presidents to Hospital Directors, with a special Pediatric track. Vendors included Acute Rehab Hospitals, Revenue Cycle firms, and recruiters.
The ACMA emphasized training, policy influence, and the impending shortage of Social Workers and Case Managers by 2030. Noteworthy presentations covered Data Storytelling, Community Coalition Hubs, and Hospital at Home concepts.
Connections were made with Care Simple (telehealth devices), The Community Initiative (community coalition hubs), Strata (SNF database platform), and others. The conference provided CEU credits, networking chances via LinkedIn, and potential nurse consulting candidates.
Breakout sessions revealed innovative staff engagement strategies, while speakers discussed Epic optimization. The conference drew high-level CM System VPs and leaders, offering valuable networking and consultant referral opportunities.

August 2022

Georgia ACMA Chapter

Susan Stern, Quality Healthcare Partners recently visited the Georgia ACMA Chapter while they held their conference in August with over 100 RN and SW attending. The first speaker provided information on what is required for Guardianship. Many elders need someone to handle their health or financial decisions when they are no longer competent due to illness. There was also a lively CM leader panel discussion that allowed the audience to interact and ask questions. Many hospitals have cut their bed capacity due to the ongoing nursing shortage and discharge planning for the underinsured is difficult especially in rural areas where resources are limited. Susan had the opportunity to share about Quality Healthcare Partners.

May 2022

The National American Case Management Association (ACMA) 

The National American Case Management Association (ACMA) recently brought together 2000 RN and Social Workers from across the USA to Texas for several days to learn new trends in hospital and post-acute facilities.  Susan Stern, Quality Healthcare Partners, attended as a member and found that hospitals just coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic are struggling with transitions of care for older adults with multiple chronic illnesses. The conference topics were informative on how hospital at home has opened capacity at larger hospital systems. The networking events were outstanding, and Susan sees opportunities for Interim Director of Case Management positions.

February 2021

Wall Street Journal-Best and Brightest Companies to Work for in the Nation 2020

Quality Healthcare Partners was listed in the Wall Street Journal as one of the Best and Brightest Companies to Work for in the Nation for 2020.
MOUNT AIRY, MARYLAND, USA, February 10, 2021 /EINPresswire.com/ — The 2020 national winning companies were assessed by an independent research firm which reviewed a number of key measures relative to other nationally recognized winners.
With over 20 years of experience conducting the Best and Brightest competitions, the National Association for Business Resources (NABR) has identified numerous best Human Resource practices and provided benchmarking for companies that continue to be leaders in employment standards. Mark Debnam, Founder and CEO of Quality Healthcare Partners shares “We are simply overjoyed to have won this prestigious award for our third year in a row and be published in the Wall Street Journal”.
Quality Healthcare Partners is nationally recognized for its leadership in assisting healthcare organizations with challenging initiatives. Our team of world-class experts applies business operations knowledge to each assignment we perform.

December 2020

CMSA Today: Case Management Society of America

CMSA Today – This publication delivers important news and information direct from the Case Management Society of America (CMSA) – the largest and oldest non-profit, multi-disciplinary care management professional association in the United States.
Susan Stern, Executive Director/Consultant at Quality Healthcare Partners, was recently published within this edition Lessons Learned From COVID-19 Surge Planning and Recovery.
Download Susan’s article here:
https://files.constantcontact.com/679341c6201/b8bd04f9-da26-418f-a87d-97940ef2b956.pdf

October 2020

Maryland Secretary’s Citation

On July 20, 2020, Mark received an email from the MD Department of Commerce’s Senior Business Development Representative for Frederick and Carroll Counties, Tamar Osterman. It had been brought to her attention that Quality would be celebrating its 20th anniversary this year and she, along with Denise Beaver, the Deputy Director of the Carroll County Department of Economic Development, wanted to present us with a Secretary’s citation in honor of our anniversary. Unfortunately, we were not able to accept this wonderful honor in person, but we did have a chance to virtually meet with Tamar and Denise on Zoom and hear about some great programs available to us as a small business. Also, they were nice enough to mail the citation to us!

September 2020

2020 Best and Brightest Companies to Work for In the Nation

We did it again!! We are honored to announce that Quality Healthcare Partners has been selected as one of the 2020 Best and Brightest Companies to Work For in the Nation!
Best and Brightest strives to recognize the most influential, trend-setting companies across the country and regionally in focused programs, and we are honored to be recognized 3 years in a row.

January 2019

2019 Best and Brightest Companies to Work For in the Nation®

We are honored to announce that Quality IT Partners/Quality Healthcare Partners has been selected as one of the 2019 Best and Brightest Companies to Work For in the Nation!
Best and brightest strives to recognize the most influential, trend-setting companies across the country and regionally in focused programs.
The Best and Brightest Companies to Work For® competition identifies and honors organizations that display a commitment to excellence in their human resource practices and employee enrichment. Organizations are assessed based on categories such as communication, work-life balance, employee education, diversity, recognition, retention and more.

June 2019

2019 CMSA Annual National Conference   

The CMSA Annual Conference & Expo was held in Las Vegas, Nevada this year and brought together case managers and allied health professionals for a week of networking opportunities, diverse educational sessions and presentations by outstanding leading industry experts.
The Case Management Society of America (CMSA) is the national organization for over 12,000 case managers across the USA and represents case manager members from all sectors of the industry including acute hospital, government, ambulatory care, pharmacy, accreditation, managed care, workers compensation, independent case management businesses, and independent case management groups for patient advocacy.  The conference was well attended with over 2000 attendees.  Susan Stern, Executive Director at Quality is a certified case manager and attended the conference. There were over 500 vendors from related fields at the exhibit and additional sessions on diabetes, cancer, heart failure and medical breakthroughs.
One of the highlights of the conference was the presentation of the CMSA task force on Acute Care Hospital Case Management Practice which promoted a new model of case management that could take the place of traditional discharge planning and focus on individual care planning for high risk patients and families.  The new model would require hospital systems to change from a decentralized to a centralized model for insurance utilization review and align front end UR activities with revenue cycle.  The emphasis is to be on long term care planning for chronic disease and high risk populations and bridging inpatient and ambulatory care management systems on one electronic medical record for easier individual care plans.  Currently RN case managers and social workers do non-clinical tasks to expedite in-patient referrals to nursing homes, home health, and other post-acute services.  The CMSA task force is advocating these chores be done centrally by non-clinical teams and case managers be trained in assisting patients and families in self-management.   The Cleveland Clinic is implementing this approach but it does take a major shift by C-Suite executives to support the new model. The how to implement this new role will be an opportunity for consultants able to show the return on investment and execute the new design.
Susan found the acute care hospital and legal track sessions quite informative on CMS new regulatory requirements and the next improvements in health care.  One trend that consultants should be aware of is the growing use of Lean Six Sigma Methodology and QI Macros to realize opportunities for improvement. Susan Stern gained insight on how a payer with high denials was identified using Excel Data and a new process developed to reverse appeals.  These tools are available and can help Quality consultants in their projects. Susan talked to a vendor offering group licenses for the QI Macros with some support. If interested Susan can be contacted at sstern@qualityhcp.com for additional information on the software.
Overall this conference was a success and touched all areas of case management including the military, workers compensation, hospital, long term care, health plans and other independent agencies.

February 2019


Duke Children’s

In February, Karen Donoghue volunteered at the Duke Children’s Development Center, assisting with event material preparations.  Each year, several national companies host fundraising campaigns for Duke Children’s through Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. Volunteers come together to prepare materials for each of these fundraisers. 
In addition, Quality Healthcare Partners contributed a corporate donation to Duke Children’s/Children’s Miracle Network Hospital.  Corporate donations make a real difference —in countless ways—in the lives of many children.  These gifts are used to advance medical care and provide a better tomorrow for our children.

December 2018

2018 Best and Brightest Companies to Work For in the Nation®

We are honored to announce that Quality Healthcare Partners has been selected as one of the 2018 Best and Brightest Companies to Work For in the Nation.
Best and brightest strives to recognize the most influential, trend-setting companies across the country and regionally in focused programs.
The Best and Brightest Companies to Work For® competition identifies and honors organizations that display a commitment to excellence in their human resource practices and employee enrichment. Organizations are assessed based on categories such as communication, work-life balance, employee education, diversity, recognition, retention and more.

Congratulations to everyone!!!

November 2018

Georgia HFMA Fall Summit

Duane Kennedy, Quality Healthcare Partners, attended the Georgia HFMA’s Fall Summit in Savannah, GA. As part of the Education Committee, he planned leading up to the event to curate topics with more of a focus on back-end Revenue Cycle strategy. This was of special interests to him, as in the past year he has been trying to educate himself beyond his normal responsibilities in software and look at the complexities down the line in the Revenue Cycle.
A couple sessions that he thoroughly enjoyed:

  1. “Moneyball: Using Analytics to Enable Management of the “New” Rev Cycle”, taught by the CFO of The University of Tennessee hospital
  2. “Optimizing Revenue Cycle Performance” taught by a Revenue Cycle leader at a hospital close to our client in PA

One general session was geared towards the elections and the impact it would have on the world of EMR and reimbursement, which helped me note some changes that could affect planning for my current client in the LTACH world.
‘The Patient is the New Payer”, presented by Andrea Mejiah – Director of Patient Financial Care at Piedmont in GA, opened our eyes to more of a consumer driven world on the rise. Price transparency is one of the more interesting pieces to that, as systems starting Jan 2019 are required to make their Chargemasters (prices included) accessible to the public.
These summits are usually twice a year and create an atmosphere of collaboration, along with the share of passion for what we do. We will now start preparing for our next summit in Spring 2019!

September 2018

Jim Garrett, CISSP, GCFA, CKE, MBA
Chief Information Security Officer and Executive Health System Security Specialist at Quality Healthcare Partners

Congratulations Jim Garrett on being named in Becker’s Hospital Review ‘32 Hospital and Health System CISOs to Know – 2018’. https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/lists/32-hospital-and-health-system-cisos-to-know-2018.html
Jim Garrett. Interim CISO at University Hospital (Newark, N.J.). Mr. Garrett serves as interim CISO of University Hospital, where he assisted in the hospital’s completion of Meaningful Use attestation. He also supports the governance risk and compliance framework to conduct Meaningful Use and HIPAA compliance assessments. Mr. Garrett previously served as CISO for the State of New York and oversaw the state’s enterprise information security office. He also was 3M’s first CISO.
This is a huge honor! Congratulations Jim.

June 2018

NAHQ’s Commissioner’s Meeting – June 19-21, 2018

Sandra Greenawalt, Quality Healthcare Partners consultant, serves as a Commissioner on the Certification Committee. There are over 11,000 healthcare professionals who hold the Certified Healthcare Quality Professional (CPHQ) designation. NAHQ is the professional home for Healthcare quality professionals (HQPs). HQPs play an essential role in every facet of the healthcare system, including: inpatient care facilities, post-acute and long-term care settings, home health services, ambulatory and community–based settings, health plans, managed care, and healthcare consulting firms. HQPs demonstrate a commitment to improving clinical outcomes, implementing process improvement strategies, and ensuring stakeholder engagement and satisfaction.
Topic’s discussed at the June 2018 Commissioner’s Meeting:

  • Shifting the mindset from being a “health care” system to a “health” system incorporating wellness and prevention with care. In the not-too distant future, health delivery systems will, and should, be paid for keeping people healthy and out of the hospital rather than for procedures and admissions. The economic framework of health care will be turned upside down, with profit being directed toward maintaining the health of populations rather than toward just thwarting illness.
  • QI (Quality Improvement) needs to focus on the role social determinants play on health systems and health care.
  • Focus on High-Need, High Cost Patients. Often these adults dealing with multiple chronic conditions and sometimes disability and functional limitations as well. They struggle to get the range of medical, behavioral and social services they require to stay well. Shortcomings in primary care for these patients is of major concern in all advanced nations.
  • Aging population – cost of service.
  • Drug usage and costs (pain management, Opioid Crisis).
  • Monitor quality metrics within and across settings:
    • Collaboration between payers and providers: payers are better at accounting for and analyzing not only for social determinants (shelter, food) but other health determinants like race, ethnicity, sex, language.
    • Payers are addressing the growing issue of Non-Beneficial Treatment (NBT) at the End of Life.
    • HQPs need to leverage HQ competencies to demonstrate accountability through quality scorecards, defining quality/cost, patient satisfaction and financial stewardship.
    • HQPs need to understand the failure points in transitions of care to establish measures that will predict downstream outcomes, i.e. lack of discharge instructions impact on home care outcomes.
    • Providers will want to partner with strong performers on quality/cost metrics
      HQPs need to facilitate the development of productive relationships with multiple key stakeholders including suppliers such as pharmaceutical companies. Integrate social determinants into work.
    • HQPs need competencies to address the uniqueness of rural and underserved areas (healthcare access and health determinants/social issues).
    • HQP’s need competencies to review sources of evidenced based health as they relate to care transitions (e.g. selecting the best care transition model for the health care facility).
    • HQP’s need competencies to describe legal, ethical and financial issues related to populations served.
    • HQP’s need to identify social health issues that impact an individual’s health outcomes and longevity.
  • Consumer Involvement and advocacy:
    • HQPs will need to involve consumers in improvement and safety initiatives and advocate for consumer membership on organizational boards, patient advocacy councils and committees/task team, this takes a different skill set.
    • HQPs will need to work directly with consumers when they start to own their own data (i.e., Block Chain Technology), implications for privacy and transparency rules and regulations. HQPs would need help patients interpret their data and understand how to share access to caregivers. This could lead to better care as patients would have access to entire case all the time and could share just in time. Consumer Education
    • HQPs need to be skilled in simplifying the communication of complex measures. Transparency of information is good but how does a healthcare consumer decide what is valid and reliable with so many rating systems – CMS, Joint Commission, Healthgrades etc. Now even consumer reports how do consumers sort out conflicting data? How do HQPs help both consumers and providers decipher information?
    • HQPs will need to incorporate the concept of teaching consumers to be good stewards of resources by educating them on patient/customer benchmarks, metrics and the value equation of quality/cost

April 2018

The American Case Management Association (ACMA), National Conference, Houston, Texas – April 2018

The American Case Management Association (ACMA) held their National Conference in Houston, Texas on April 22 -25, 2018. The conference brought together case management and transitions of care professionals from across the country to collaborate, network and learn the latest best practices. Susan Stern, Clinical Executive Director at Quality HealthCare Partners, attended and was amazed at advancements being made in the field of Case Management / Care Coordination.
Case Managers and Transitions of Care professionals have been traditionally known for performing utilization review and discharge planning in acute care hospitals and health plans. New demands are being placed on developing new Care Coordination and Population-Based Programs that is changing the entire profession.
Dr. Daniel Kraft, a distinguished physician-scientist was the key note speaker and examined the rapidly emerging game changing and convergent technology trends, and how they are and will be leveraged to change the face of health care. The conference also had experts on Joint Commission and CMS requirements and regulations that impact acute care hospitals, home health and critical access hospitals.
There are currently 50 hospitals in the USA that have had their Medicare Conditions of Participation revoked due to deficiencies. It is proposed in the near future more CMS audits will be initiated and more hospitals will be cited for failure to follow the regulations. There were several sessions on the need for meaningful and reliable data to monitor compliance and leaders to be more involved in early identification of probable problems or issues.
Susan also attended the session on developing dashboards that are actionable and achievable. Case Management leaders should find problems they can solve not just measure. The session was well worth the time and indicates there is a growing trend for analytic professionals who understand and can provide dash boards in real time for hospitalists, emergency room, quality, nursing and case management. Exhibitors from Cerner, Epic, Midas, Meditech, Allscripts, and Navihealth demonstrated new products and features to automate care coordination efforts across the continuum into ambulatory care.
The conference ended on a high note with an incredible virtual choir showing how teams can be created and engaged. There were 2000 plus attendees at the ACMA conference. As a certified case manager the opportunity to network and learn more about changes in the field was well worth the trip and valuable to building a team of consultants able to step in and evaluate case management programs or be interim case management managers/directors.

January 2018

Here We Grow!

We have officially gained our copyright to the trade name of Quality Healthcare Partners! As we grow and expand our business offerings, this will allow us to integrate our functional healthcare services side by side with our IT services. It will also assist with the customer’s perspective of who we are and what we do.

Quality Healthcare Partners services: Revenue Cycle, Midas+, Care Management, Case Management, Compliance, Interim Services, Accreditation and Quality Management, Population Health, Contract Negotiation

Quality Healthcare Partners services: Cerner, Epic, Siemens, Allscripts, QuadraMed,
McKesson, Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery, IT Project Management, IS Planning, IS Selection, Hospital MOB, Infrastructure, Medical Imagine Archive, IT Security

January 2018

Groundbreaking Research 15 Years in the Making!
The Taussig Cancer Institute at the Cleveland Clinic has been a client of ours for many years. When Quality first began our One Patient One World philanthropy initiative, we were introduced to Antoinette “Toni” Turchi through Dr. Vincent Touhy.
Read More
We have stayed in close contact with Toni since meeting her in 2011. She is in good health and has been an unwavering advocate for Dr. Touhy, her physician and mentor, through his journey to developing this breast cancer vaccine. We are excited to share the following article with you not only because of the obvious positive impact this will have on those seeking prevention but also because we are honored to know someone who has the tenacity to keep making strides toward making cancer a thing of the past!
Cleveland doctor gets grant to start human clinical trials to test breast cancer vaccine

ABC News 5 Cleveland Jennifer Auh
6:26 PM, Oct 31, 2017
7:06 PM, Nov 2, 2017
CLEVELAND, Ohio – About one in every eight women will develop breast cancer at some point in their lives.

Dr. Vincent Tuohy with the Lerner Research Institute at the Cleveland Clinic is working on a vaccine that could possibly make preventing breast cancer as easy as getting a shot.
Dr. Tuohy has been working on developing this breast cancer vaccine since 2002 by genetically modifying mice to get triple-negative breast cancer by the time they are ten months old. His research team vaccinates the mice at 2 months old and waits to see if the mice develop breast cancer by ten months.
“They didn’t show any breast tumors (when they turned 10 months old),” he said. “We were very pleased with those results.”
He got the promising results seven years ago, but says he received lots of push back and skepticism.
‘It was a new idea, a little too new,” he said. “A little too far out of the box.”
But Dr. Tuohy kept going, attributing his tenacity with what he calls stubbornness, something he says he got from his parents.
His vaccine contains a special protein to prevent triple-negative breast cancer, which can be hereditary and is the deadliest form of breast cancer.
His unique take is to tackle the cancer defensively, instead of offensively.
“The way we deal with cancer, we wait for it to happen,” said Tuohy. “Then, we beat the daylights out of it with surgery and chemotherapy and immunotherapy and hormone therapy and radiation therapy.”
His passion and tenacity paid off. Just last month, the Department of Defense awarded him a $6 million grant to hold human clinical trials.
While Dr. Tuohy is overjoyed by the news, his journey is far from over.
“This is the first attempt that we have at preventing just one form of breast cancer,” he said. “There are other forms of breast cancer that I think need to be prevented.”
In addition, Tuohy is working on developing a vaccine for ovarian cancer.

Copyright 2017 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved.
Video and Article:
http://www.news5cleveland.com/news/cleveland-doctor-gets-grant-to-test-his-breast-cancer-vaccine-on-humans

August 2017

Annual Georgia Summer HFMA Institute

This year Duane Kennedy had the honor last week, July 26th-28th, of attending the annual Georgia Summer HFMA Institute in Jekyll Island, Florida. Over the past couple months, Duane got to work closely with some leaders in in the Atlanta/Georgia Healthcare arena (on the HFMA program committee) on organizing the event. Attendees included 150+ professionals from around the Southeast, Northeast and Midwest.
Some insight from Duane: My favorite piece had to be the chance to network with everyone and spread ideas. I was overwhelmed with how many different routes the industry holds, and how many it will hold into the future with emerging technology and constant change to Revenue Cycle processes and regulations. With so many pieces to the Revenue Cycle, people are really digging deep to perfect processes where a lot of dollars fall in the cracks. Fortunately for us IT guys, a lot these solutions are software focused!
Along the with the chance to collaborate, we had 3 days of sessions. Some of my favorites included:

  • Inpatient Reimbursement (really makes me want to perfect my charging work and follow it all the way to monitoring denial rates)
  • Rural hospital CFO Panel (Highly interesting, as they discussed the challenges of providing care in rural health setting)
  • Data driven decisions; How to get the most out of your clinical data
  • The key to improving revenue cycle operations
  • Who you are becoming as a leader (maybe a classic “feel good” example, but I really take in forms of empowerment when I have the chance)

Ideas I might like to discuss into the future:

  • Learning new EDI strategies around Denial Management/Cash Management/Payment Acceleration. I was actually offered weekly learning sessions on a Denial Management solution from a consultant at “etactics”.
  • A target of rural Health Hospitals. They lack the ability to attract and retain financial, professionals.

I look forward to staying actively involved in the Georgia HFMA and being a constant resource for financial projects going into the future.

July 2017

What a surprise!  Quality was featured on the front page of the Carroll County Times Newspaper on July 4th. 
http://www.carrollcountytimes.com/news/business_technology/
http://www.carrollcountytimes.com/news/business_technology/ph-cc-best-small-business-20170704-story.html

June 2017

Quality Healthcare Partners Named One of  INC. MAGAZINE’S BEST WORKPLACES 2017

Quality Healthcare Partners is ranked #3 in America of best workplaces in the small business sector by Inc. Magazine, spotlighted in the June 2017 Issue

Mount Airy, Maryland (June 22, 2017) – Quality Healthcare Partners has been named the third best workplace in America by Inc. Magazine, in the publication’s annual ranking of the nation’s fast-growing small business private company sector.
Hitting newsstands in the June 2017 issue, and as part of a prominent Inc.com feature, the list is the result of a wide-ranging and comprehensive measurement of private American companies who have created exceptional workplaces through vibrant cultures, deep employee engagement, and stellar benefits. Out of thousands of applicants, Inc. Magazine singled out just over 200 winning companies, of which Quality Healthcare Partners is among the top 50 highest scoring – achieving position three nationwide.
Built in partnership with employee engagement and work culture experts Quantum Workplace of Omaha, Nebraska, Inc.’s Best Workplaces list is a magnifying glass on how innovative companies can truly raise the bar in hiring and retaining the best talent.
What does it take to become a company that workers want to be part of? Inc. magazine says it’s more than good pay and good perks – it’s also about having a clear purpose, a sense of humor, and leadership that makes the two work together.
Mark Debnam, Founder and CEO of Quality Healthcare Partners shares “I consider it my primary responsibility to nurture and preserve our business culture of kindness, respect, and genuine caring for the well-being of everyone.  Folks in our organization sense this appreciatively, feel part of a family, and it becomes contagious.  We thrive – and we thrive strong together sharing the philosophy of One for all, and all for one.”
The 2017 Inc. Best Workplaces Awards assessed applicants on the basis of benefits offered and employees’ responses to a unique, 30-question survey fielded by each of the applying companies. Responses were evaluated by the research team at Quantum Workplace. For its results to qualify, each company had to achieve a statistically significant response rate based on employee count. Survey scores account for employer size to level the playing field between small and large businesses. All companies had to have minimum of 10 employees and to be U.S.-based, privately held, and independent – that is, not subsidiaries or divisions of other companies.
While researching the entries, Inc. and Quantum saw distinct themes develop:

  • Strong company cultures breed stunning individual and team performance.
  • Workers at the best companies don’t view their employers as sugar daddies. They aren’t mesmerized by whatever giveaways seem to be the latest fad—be it gourmet lunches or beer fridges.
  • When employees feel valued by their organization, they are far more likely to be engaged. This single factor proved to be one of the largest drivers of employee engagement.
  • Here at Quality, we live a special corporate culture together every day.  While there are many dimensions of our dynamic company, the most important is our culture.  We consider ourselves a family.  We care for one another, we rely on one another, and we look out for each other.  Building a company on these principles means that we all share in our successes and challenges alike.  None of us here at Quality celebrates achievement or faces adversity alone.  We are committed to fostering the advancement of our team members through education and leadership opportunities.

“By introducing an employee survey into this year’s Best Workplaces selection process, we’ve really raised the bar. Companies that don’t score at the very top of their peer group don’t make the cut. So, our hats are off to the winners. They all excelled at engaging their workers, making them feel appreciated, and aligning them behind a mission. And remember, that’s not just our opinion: The employees told us that themselves.”
About Quality Healthcare Partners
Quality Healthcare Partners (Quality) is nationally recognized for its leadership in assisting healthcare organizations with challenging information technology initiatives. Our team of world-class technologists applies business operations knowledge to each assignment. We balance strategic thinking with the practical implementation of technology. Whether it be legacy systems or state-of-the-art infrastructures, we strive to help you achieve the greatest benefit from your investment. Please feel free to contact us directly at (888) 886-7774. You may also reach us by email at contactus@qualityhcp.com. We look forward to hearing from you!
About Quantum Workplace
Quantum Workplace is an HR technology company that serves organizations through employee engagement surveys, action-planning tools, exit surveys, peer-to-peer recognition, performance evaluations, goal tracking, and leadership assessment. For more information, visit www.quantumworkplace.com.
https://www.inc.com/profile/quality-it-partners
http://www.bizjournals.com/baltimore/prnewswire/press_releases/Maryland/2017/06/15/MN17976

September 2016

National Association of Specialty Pharmacy (NASP) Conference, Washington, D.C.Susan Stern, Quality Healthcare Partners, was invited to be a speaker at the National Association of Specialty Pharmacy (NASP) Conference in Washington, D.C. on September 28, 2016. NASP is a trade association representing all stakeholders in the specialty pharmacy industry. Its members include the nation’s leading specialty pharmacies, pharmaceutical and biotechnology manufacturers. There are 100 corporate members and 1600 individuals in NASP.
In a session entitled, “What’s New in Pharmacy Accreditation,” Susan spoke about the need for gap analysis and guidance to implement national standards whether they are from the Joint Commission or URAC. As a consultant, she wants to help clients meet the demands of payers who are now requiring two specialty pharmacy accreditations for these clients to be considered in-network. Bonnie Sturges, who is on Quality’s accreditation team, as well, is working side by side with Susan to help these groups prepare for URAC Accreditation.
The conference was well attended. There are definite opportunities for data mining and systems improvements in specialty pharmacies that must prove their value in order to be part of value based care. Susan is also exploring doing work for hospital systems that need help with Joint Commission preparation for home infusion and home care, as well.

September 2016

New Ebook Available – Tips to Stop Revenue Cycle Leakage In Your Hospital Revenue Cycle

Quality Healthcare Partners is proud to share with you what our expert clinical and financial analyst team has learned about solving revenue leakage and restoring revenue cycle cash flow. As we enter a new era in value-based care, it is imperative that you consider new ways of collaborating with others – not just within your own revenue cycle management department. You must also engage physicians to improve their documentation and to be involved in cost containment strategies.
This guide provides practical tips to stop potential revenue leakage of money and resources from your hospital revenue cycle that you may not have considered. You can use these tips to improve operational efficiency and reduce errors. The end result is a proficient revenue cycle team, well-trained employees and a solid, healthier financial future. Whether you are looking to make end-to-end revenue cycle improvements or function-specific enhancements, this guide will supply you with solutions to achieve your revenue goals and help your employees understand the importance of their work.
If you are a hospital administrator or clinical leader looking for the best solutions and tools to improve operational efficiency, reduce redundancy and manage bundled payments, click on the link provided below and download your free e-Book now!
Click here for Free Download!
Follow-up and Implementation: Quality Healthcare Partners provides the solutions and the support you will need to achieve your revenue cycle goals. We offer in-depth audits to prevent back-end revenue leakage and we will introduce behavioral change approaches to enlist physician ownership in cost containment strategies and management of bundled payments. Please contact us for a complimentary consultation to determine your specific needs.
Contact Susan Stern at sstern@qualityhcp.com or call 816-661-9577

July 2016

ANI-HFMA Conference

This year Susan Stern from Quality Healthcare Partners attended the ANI-HFMA Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada the week of June 26, 2016. Healthcare finance professionals from around the country participated in more than 90 expert-led sessions and networked with their peers. On average there were 5000 who attended the conference. Of particular interest was the session on the new risk bearing models and proposed inpatient Medicare payment system. Revenue Cycle Management will be impacted as more health system and hospital contracts involve 90-day episode care payments. Accurate reimbursement will be driven by clinical documentation improvement strategies and automation. Another interesting session was on the impact of switching electronic medical records systems and the impact on revenue cycle management and patient satisfaction. Overall, the conference was well received and insightful on how the upcoming affordable care act regulations will push more hospital services into the outpatient setting.

June 2016

Quality sponsored our first Affinity Open Forum meeting on June 16. We had nine people in attendance, representing six different facilities. As the QuadraMed Listserve closes down, our forum gatherings will re-open the door for the Affinity user community with the continued opportunity to stay close in touch, share experiences, and help one another. Our Affinity Forum is intended to bring us closer together and provide opportunities for discussion, networking, and sharing tips on Affinity and related topics. This first call provided a very informative discussion. Our next meeting is planned for September 15, and we will be discussing M15 – the good, the bad, and (hopefully not), the ugly.
If you are interested in attending, please email us at CONTACTUS@QUALITYHCP.COM

April 2016

Quality Healthcare Partners Expands Its Specialty Services For Hospitals, Health Systems and Clinically Integrated Networks

Quality Healthcare Partners (Quality) has announced the expansion of its specialty services for hospitals, health systems, and clinically integrated networks. This year Quality has increased its emphasis on building partnerships with hospitals, health systems, and clinically integrated networks. Healthcare organizations are competing to be the dominant health systems in their regions. In addition, healthcare is still regionally based with each healthcare organization looking to remain financially healthy while still being above the competition. Healthcare financial stability is a significant concern in changing marketplaces. Dependable and quick turnarounds are required to keep on track of IT, financial, and clinical projects.
Through a variety of special service offerings, Quality is providing consulting services to assist organizations in all areas of their operations and IT support, including the following:

  • Denial Management and Revenue Cycle Optimization – the increase in denials by payers has been alarming. Quality offers special services to provide expertise in this area to evaluate your process and eliminate underpayments and denials. You may think you’re doing everything possible to submit clean, accurate claims to payers, yet denials still persist. If you do not know where you stand with your denial rates, you can’t reduce the problem. Quality assists its clients managing their denials within the complexity of their organization. From denial assessment to prevention, Quality’s team of expert consultants provides solutions to achieve rapid revenue cycle adjudication and positive cash flow improvements. We work with your team to implement best practices for sustaining results.
  • Documentation Optimization that Reflects Current Treatment Efforts for Medical Necessity – too often, hospital organizations have been locked into traditional ways of performing documentation. Quality’s expert clinical and IT staff can assist you in enhancing your current process to automate in areas including admission action plans for patients and caregivers. Discharge planning and care management departments are often focused on traditional utilization review when the underlying problem is implementing best practices within 24 hours of an admission. Let Quality offer you the opportunity to improve DRG admission reviews and length of stays while engaging your physician leadership in better ways to handle observation and in-patient admission stays. New methods of documenting admission and discharge summaries often make a substantial difference to your bottom line and improve discharge planning results.
  • Population Health Management – hospitals are taking on more risk, and an evaluation of your current population health strategy can prevent adverse outcomes while building on your expertise to manage chronic conditions. We have a clinical team to evaluate and offer you a return-on-investment plan to optimize your resources and improve clinical outcomes. Financial planning is critical to implementation of a population health management program that improves outpatient services and reduces unnecessary readmissions. If you are moving to commercial or Medicare ACO risk contracting, you must be able to validate quality outcomes not just cost savings. Let Quality offer you clinical expertise to assess, plan, evaluate, and monitor your population health management strategy.
  • Clinical Integration Analysis – Quality offers accreditation readiness evaluation of your clinically integrated network. Our experts can offer a systematic review and gap analysis of your clinically integrated network based on national URAC Clinical Integration Standards. If you are interested in reducing your antitrust risk, Quality will work with you to prepare for URAC Clinical Integration Accreditation.
  • Evaluating Telehealth and Telemedicine Services – Many hospitals, health systems, and clinically integrated networks are closely considering and implementing telemedicine and telehealth technologies. Telehealth by definition is the remote delivery of health services and clinical information using telecommunications technology. This includes a wide array of clinical services using internet, wireless, satellite, and telephone media. As a healthcare organization you may be at the crossroads of building or buying telehealth and telemedicine services or software. Telehealth and telemedicine services are still in their infancy as viable medical outreach methods to patients and show great promise. However, a thorough assessment and comparison of what is currently available and suitable to your organization, including the reputation of the vendors you are considering, is vital to a successful program implementation. According to the American Telemedicine Association there are about 200 telemedicine networks, with 3500 service sites in the U.S. Let Quality assist in evaluating the services you need based on nationally recognized criteria.
  • Clinical Information Analysis / Project Management – we have highly experienced clinicians and consultants to assist in new and ongoing system projects you are supporting. Our consultants have expertise in such areas as Cerner, Epic, QuadraMed, Midas+, Siemens, Allscripts and McKesson. No matter the size of your organization – or the variety of care services you provide, Quality’s consultants have the clinical experience, workflow expertise, and application knowledge to assist you in achieving the results you are looking to gain from your applications.

Susan Stern, MHA, RN, CCM with over 25 years of experience in healthcare and consultative services. She is an Executive Director with Quality Healthcare Partners, and specializes in assessing the needs of hospital, healthcare systems and clinically integrated networks. To learn more, please contact Susan at 816-905-3260 or by email at sstern@qualityhcp.com to set up a free initial consultation or proposal.

March 2016

Important: QuadraMed Affinity M15 & M15SP1 Upgrade

You live… You learn… You upgrade! It’s that time again

Now that everyone has had an opportunity to catch their breath after ICD-10, it’s time to move forward with the latest Affinity updates from QuadraMed. Version M15 was released for general availability back on April 24, 2015, followed by the M15SP1 on January 21, 2016.
Quality Healthcare Partners (Quality) has a team of renowned specialists, including our latest addition Joe Testa, with over 25 years’ experience implementing Affinity and providing maintenance services to QuadraMed users nationwide. We have in-depth knowledge and experience to assist your staff with every aspect of your system upgrade.
Quality provides unlimited services for Affinity support, including the following sampling of offerings:

  • Release note review – our specialists will provide you with a spreadsheet review of all release notes relative to this upgrade that can be used for review with staff, testing, documentation, audit, and other key functions.
  • System Management services, including the following:
    • Load release to Product
    • Make release to Support
    • Load release to Live
    • Assistance with the creation of testing scenarios, and oversight of functional and integrated testing
    • Assistance with documentation of new functionality
    • Assistance with required set-up/build identified in the release notes
    • Training for end users
    • Assistance with system and process optimization.

Advanced Affinity services made simple.

October 2015

Cerner Health Conference 2015

Once again, Quality’s Cerner Practice Team attended this year’s Cerner Health Conference, held in Kansas City, MO from October 11th-14th, 2015. The Cerner Health Conference brings together health care professionals from around the globe to experience targeted client presentations, networking opportunities, and the award-winning Solutions Gallery to explore the latest products and solutions from Cerner and their partners. This year’s theme, Connecting What Matters, focused on connecting information across the care continuum, pairing populations with intelligent solutions and resources while supporting care and business teams across the globe. Neal Patterson, Cerner chairman and CEO, addressed more than 14,000 professionals, clients, and associates during his keynote and was joined most notably by guest, Dr. Karen DeSalvo from the US Department of Health and Human Services. DeSalvo and Patterson spoke candidly about the new interoperability roadmap and moving to a set of nationally recognized standards, with the need for data to move seamlessly. The Cerner Health Conference is an annual meeting of the minds that showcases what we have collectively achieved and pushes us towards tomorrow’s vision. Quality is committed to their partnership with Cerner and building a healthier future together.

July 2015

Rogers Memorial Hospital Foundation 20th Annual Golf Classic

On July 13th, Quality Healthcare Partners participated in the Rogers Memorial Hospital Foundation 20th Annual Golf Classic in Wisconsin. Quality Healthcare Partners is a proud sponsor of the Rogers Foundation, which supports children, teens and adults fighting mental illness. The Foundation raises funds to increase access to medical professionals at Rogers Memorial Hospital and to enhance the hospital’s treatment programs.

June 2015

Joseph Testa joins Quality Healthcare Partners

Employee Announcement June 19, 2015

MOUNT AIRY, Maryland – Quality Healthcare Partners (Quality) is pleased to announce that Joe Testa has recently joined their Revenue Cycle Solutions Practice as a Senior Consultant.

Joe is a key addition to Quality’s Revenue Cycle Solutions Practice. He is initially focusing on and assisting their QuadraMed clients with business office process improvement, revenue cycle optimization and Affinity software related tasks.

Joe comes to Quality with over thirty-five years’ of experience in the healthcare industry. He has extensive experience in acute care hospital environments as well as revenue cycle consulting/implementation/support and development of healthcare information systems. He has implemented over 20 revenue cycle systems as well as consulted on numerous implementation projects.

Joe has held such roles as Hospital Accountant, Business Office Manager/Director of Revenue Cycle and Controller/Chief Financial Officer. He has an expert understanding of the industry to help hospitals improve their cash flow and overall revenue cycle processes to include patient access/registration and HIM/coding. Joe is also highly experienced in creating best practices for assisting with client reviews, against industry benchmarks, including process improvements.

May 2015

2015 Cerner NARUG (North Atlantic Regional User Group) Conference

Quality recently attended the Cerner NARUG (North Atlantic Regional User Group) conference in Baltimore, MD. The conference centered on knowledge-sharing and networking and offered many key workflow and educational opportunities. The event gave our team the opportunity to connect with Cerner associates and our Cerner clients/colleagues, as well as share and learn through the educational sessions.

One highlight of the meeting was a site visit to Sinai Hospital, part of LifeBridge Health. Our team was part of the overall hospital tour which included walkthroughs of the Central Registration, Emergency Department, Cancer Center, Pediatric Oncology, Radiology Department, and Maternity areas highlighting their use of Cerner products and functionality.

The RUG (regional Cerner user group) community provides a venue to share and learn about enterprise-wide topics such as architecture, technology, and new Cerner initiatives. This meeting in particular is geographically aligned with where we have our corporate office in Mount Airy, MD.

April 2015

2015 HFMA Leadership Training Conference (LTC)

Quality recently attended the 2015 Leadership Training Conference at the San Antonio Marriott River Center, in San Antonio, Texas. Attendees from all 50 states and Puerto Rico came together to focus on strategic planning for their local Chapters, featuring real case studies and recent successes from their peers. There were multiple leadership labs to include: Overviews of Chapter Accounting Processes, the Financial Reporting Requirements, Chapter budgets, Treasurer Fiduciary Responsibilities and a highly valuable Idea Exchange session.

March 2015

PRESS RELEASE: Quality Healthcare Partners Awarded Cerner Training Contract for Rogers Memorial Hospital

Quality Healthcare Partners, Inc. (Quality) has been awarded a multi-facility electronic health record (EHR) training contract by Rogers Memorial Hospital to assist in meeting learning goals and delivering an effective training program for their Cerner Millennium® implementation. Terri Schultz, Vice President of Patient Care and Chief Nursing Officer of Rogers Memorial Hospital commented, “Quality has been leading our Cerner education initiative and we are very pleased with the level of service they have provided. We are looking forward to having Quality further assist us with the implementation of our EHR.” J. Mark Debnam, Quality CEO, added, “We are delighted with the partnership Rogers Memorial Hospital has established with us and look forward to further assisting them with this important initiative.”

About Quality Healthcare Partners

Quality is a hands-on, technology-driven consulting company. We assist healthcare organizations with complete end-to-end systems planning, acquisition, customization, implementation and maintenance including technical and operational support. We specialize in assisting clients in transitioning from dated, expensive legacy technologies to modern, cost-effective solutions using leading-edge implementation practices. Our implementation professionals are experienced clinicians and financial consultants and have experience with all major HIS vendors. We view each assignment as an opportunity to transfer our knowledge and experiences to our client’s staff. For more information, visit www.qualityhcp.com.

About Rogers

Wisconsin-based Rogers Behavioral Health System is a private, not-for-profit system nationally recognized for its specialized psychiatry and addiction services. Anchored by Rogers Memorial Hospital, Rogers offers multiple levels of evidence-based treatment for adults, children and adolescents with depression and mood disorders, eating disorders, addiction, obsessive-compulsive and anxiety disorders, and posttraumatic stress disorder in multiple locations. For more information, visit www.rogershospital.org.

November 2014

Cerner Health Conference 2014

Quality’s Cerner Practice Team attended the Cerner Health Conference 2014, held in Kansas City, MO from November 2nd through 5th. Cerner Health Conference is Cerner’s annual, industry-leading healthcare event and was attended by nearly 11,000 people this year. The theme, Together We Anticipate, Innovate, and Accelerate, was evident from the first general session which was concluded by returning speaker Wendy Sue Swanson, who excited the audience by sharing the many tools available to the community that will help everyone become more in tune with their own health record.

Speeches throughout the conference focused on innovation and the direction that healthcare is taking us. Among them was a heart-warming Keynote address led by Cerner CEO, Neal Patterson, whose personal account of insufficient rural healthcare has led to Cerner’s Early Sepsis Alert Program which aids clinicians in quickly identifying the signs of Sepsis and significantly decreasing mortality.

Filled with relevant education, a vast array of networking opportunities and the award-winning Solutions Gallery, the conference was an excellent opportunity for the team to connect with present and past clients, as well as create new relationships.

October 2014

Quality’s 2014 Annual Offsite – Pasadena, California

The Quality team just returned from another successful annual offsite that was held in sunny Pasadena, California. We all enjoyed our “star-studded” trip to the West Coast where we all were “California Dreamin'” while spending some Quality time with our co-workers! Our once-a-year visits always provide us time to learn from each other, catch up and relax. This year, like every other year, we made some dazzling memories!

August 2014

2014 Inc. 5000 Honoree List

We are delighted to announce that Quality Healthcare Partners has been named a 2014 Inc. 5000 honoree for the fourth consecutive year. Inc. 5000 continues to welcome the fastest growing companies in America into a very exclusive club, for over 33 years.

Thank you to everyone at Quality for contributing to this great achievement!

May 2014

Quality proudly sponsored a hole in the 8th Annual Four County Lions Club Golf Fundraiser, scheduled for June in Mt Airy, MD.

This great group is very involved with eyeglass recycling for those less fortunate who need eye wear, as well as raising money for ICARE (International Cancer Alliance for Research and Education) and spending time with Wounded Warriors from Walter Reed.

May 2014

Becker’s Hospital Review has named Quality Healthcare Partners as one of the top 150 Best Places to Work in Healthcare. This esteemed list features provider organizations, including hospitals, health systems, and ambulatory surgery centers. It also includes non-provider organizations, electronic health record providers, and information technology services providers.

Organizations on this list provide excellent work environments and outstanding benefits to their employees. The selections were based on an editorial review process in which a Becker’s Hospital Review team conducted research, considered nominations, and evaluated organizations based on their benefits, workplace culture, professional development opportunities, and previous recognition for workplace excellence.

PRESS RELEASE – 5/5/14

The following is a link to Quality Healthcare Partners profile page at Becker’s Healthcare Review: http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/150-great-places-to-work-2014/quality-it-partners-gptw-14.html

April 2014

In October 2013, Quality Healthcare Partners was selected by SmartCEO as an award winner in the Future50 Awards program! The Future50 program recognizes 50 of the fastest-growing companies in The Greater Baltimore region. Quality is honored to be named one of 2014’s esteemed Future 50 award winners!

Please take a moment to view Mark Debnam, CEO of Quality Healthcare Partners, interview video:

 

March 2014

HIMSS14 Annual Conference & Exhibition

Quality attended the HIMSS14 Annual Conference & Exhibition in Orlando, Florida. The conference was attended by close to 38,000 healthcare professionals and 1,200 exhibitors. It focused on patient safety, care quality, access and affordability.

Aetna CEO Mark T. Bertolini opened the conference by focusing on the connected patient which set the stage for the entire conference. Throughout the week long event, focus was on the individual and their responsibility for their own healthcare. From patient education, to patient portals, to incentive programs, consumer engagement is and will be the focus of our healthcare providers in the coming years. Former Secretary of State and First Lady Hillary Clinton drew a large crowd and focused her speech on evidence-based policy decisions and closing keynote speaker Erik Weihenmayer led the audience to tears with his emotional journey into blindness and how he has overcome his disability to be the first blind man to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Mr. Weihenmayer now is board vice president of No Barriers, USA, a nonprofit organization that works with disabled persons to overcome obstacles in their lives through their adventure programs.

Education sessions held during the conference focused on:

November 2013 

14th Annual An Evening with Scott Hamilton and Friends Ice Show and Gala

The event raises funds for The Scott Hamilton CARES Initiative (Cancer Alliance for Research, Education and Survivorship) and its programs including the 4th Angel Mentoring Program, Chemocare.com and research projects through the Cleveland Clinic.

Quality Healthcare Partners (Quality) corporate philanthropy sponsorship program, One Patient One World, continues to look for ways to improve the overall healthcare and patient experience. This program is designed to assist in forging new relationships between organizations and patients.

On November 2nd, Quality was honored to meet its newly sponsored patient, Ms. Charmella Prince. Quality invited Ms. Prince and a guest to join us as our guests at the 14th Annual Scott Hamilton CARES Ice Show and Gala. We wanted to provide Charmella with an evening to remember.

October 2013

Quality’s 2013 Annual Offsite – Charleston, South Carolina

The Quality team just returned from another successful annual offsite that was held in beautiful Charleston, South Carolina. We all enjoyed Charleston’s historic charm, beautiful architecture and southern food, as we came together for some brainstorming, bonding and relaxation.

October 2013

2014 SmartCEO Future 50 Award Winner

We are pleased to announce that Quality Healthcare Partners has been selected as an award winner in the Future 50 Awards program! The Future 50 program recognizes 50 of the fastest-growing companies in The Greater Baltimore region. Quality is honored to be named one of 2014’s esteemed Future 50 award winners!

August 2013

Annual QuadraMed User Group Conference

Quality recently attended the annual QuadraMed User Group Conference in Washington D.C. This was the first User Group Meeting since QuadraMed was acquired by Toronto based Constellation Software and its wholly-owned subsidiary N. Harris Computer Corporation (Harris). Quality leadership met with Harris executives, as well as previous executive QuadraMed management still in place after the acquisition, to discuss the future direction of the QuadraMed suite of products and how Quality can continue provide support to QuadraMed and its client base. In addition, Quality met with many of its QuadraMed clients and hosted a client dinner on Monday evening.

August 2013

2013 Inc. 5000 Honoree List

We are delighted to announce that Quality Healthcare Partners has been named a 2013 Inc. 5000 honoree and has made this exclusive list for the third time. For 32 years, Inc. 5000 has welcomed the fastest growing companies in America into a very exclusive club. According to Inc., it was harder to get into this year than ever in its history. We are so proud of everyone at Quality for contributing to this great achievement!

March 2013

HIMSS Convention 2013 in New Orleans

I was fortunate to have been asked to attend the 2013 HIMSS Convention and represent Quality Healthcare Partners. There were close to 40,000 attendees this year, with 1245 vendors. The convention center is one mile long, and invariably, I would choose sessions back-to-back one end of the hall from another. They allowed 15 minutes between sessions, so perhaps I walked off some of the good New Orleans food I sampled. The majority of the Sessions centered on Meaningful Use. I obtained good information and have shared with Carol Wheeler, our Cerner team lead. There was a wonderful exhibit, Interoperability Showcase. This exhibit had quite a few vendors within, demonstrating the “sharing of a patient’s electronic health record”. This was my first HIMSS, as being an NICU nurse, I would attend the AWHONN conventions, when time permitted. It was a great experience, and I am very thankful to Quality Leadership, to allow me to attend.

The biggest news at HIMSS, was when five of the large players in Electronic Health Records announced that there has been a creation of a “Commonwell Alliance”. The founders are Cerner, Athenahealth, RelayHealth, AllScripts, Greenway and McKesson. In the news, Epic states they were not asked to participate. Below are the principles, as stated on the CommonWell web page.

Vision

The CommonWell Health Alliance will be designed to be an independent not-for-profit trade association organization open to all health information technology vendors devoted to the simple vision that a patient’s data should be available to patients and providers regardless of where care occurs. Additionally, provider access to this data must be built-in to EHR technologies at a reasonable cost for use by a broad range of healthcare providers and the patients they serve.

Mission – What the CommonWell Health Alliance Plans to Deliver

The CommonWell Health Alliance plans to promote and certify a national infrastructure with common standards and policies and will ensure that products that display the CommonWell Health Alliance seal have been certified to work on the national infrastructure. Among the early core components of the national infrastructure, CommonWell Health Alliance will define and promote the following core services and standards:

  • Patient Linking and Matching – Provide a way for vendors to identify patients as they move from setting to setting, in a robust and seamless industry-wide data environment.
  • Patient Access and Consent Management – Foster a HIPAA-compliant, patient-controlled means to simplify the management of consents and authorizations for data sharing.
  • Record Locator Service and Directed Query – Enable providers to match the locations of a patient’s previous health care encounters, no matter where the encounter occurred, and gain access to that data in an industry standard way.

Purpose – Why Build a National Infrastructure and Services?

CommonWell’s purpose will be to solve the longstanding industry problem of interoperability.

Together with other industry members, we will pursue the simple vision that a patient’s data should be available in a secure, trusted manner to the patient and the patient’s care providers regardless of where care occurs. We will seek to improve care quality and foster innovation by creating an open, vendor-neutral platform to break down the technological and process barriers that currently inhibit effective health care data exchange.

Our current health care delivery system lacks an easy, affordable way to allow the frictionless movement of patient-centered data across all settings of care and among all health care IT systems. The technology landscape is fragmented and builds significant barriers to creating a single, unified view of the patient for the entire healthcare team and managing patient consent at scale.

We believe that this problem of interoperability is best solved by forming an industry consortium to adopt common standards and protocols to provide sustainable, cost-effective, trusted access to patient data. We further believe this capability should be available across vendors and delivered “out of the box” to our clients and end users, relying on a national infrastructure to implement the services in a consistent and reliable way to ensure their ubiquity.

January 2013

Winston Churchill once said, “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” At Quality the spirit of giving and corporate philanthropy is part of our DNA. This type of generosity promotes a sense of pride in our workplace. Not only during the holidays, but throughout the year we are committed to community outreach initiatives, supporting medical research foundations and touching the lives of healthcare patients.

December 2012

What an awesome way to end the year……

Who says you can’t have fun at work? We wouldn’t have it any other way here at Quality Healthcare Partners! Our team just returned from our annual offsite that was held in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. We enjoyed some sunshine, bonding, rest and relaxation with our team members and their families.

November 2012

On November 3, Quality Healthcare Partners, Inc. (Quality) was honored to be a sponsor at the 13th Annual Scott Hamilton and Friends Ice Show and Gala.

This year Quality invited quests to be seated at a table that featured representatives from both the Cleveland Clinic and executives from the Quality team. Quality’s guest of honor was a cancer patient at the Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute, along with her husband. Many gala attendees inspired by her courageous story and journey, met with her – including gala host Scott Hamilton. This years gala also included special guests such as Wynonna Judd and all 12 US Olympic Figure Skating Gold Medalists.

Quality considers this patient and her family as members of its extended company family and plans to continue to expand its outreach initiatives to further embrace the patient community for which it cares so deeply.

September 2012

On September 14, Quality Healthcare Partners, Inc. (Quality) was honored to be a sponsor at the 2012 Hillman Cancer Center Gala – Faces of Hope: A Future Without Cancer – Quality’s guest of honor was a cancer patient currently receiving treatment at the Hillman Cancer Center. Joining this patient was his wife.

The Annual Hillman Cancer Center Gala supports research and the next phase of growth and discovery at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Center (UPCI). In addition, sponsored partnerships help support outstanding scientists and clinicians housed at the Hillman Cancer Center who stand on the front lines as we continue to battle this disease. This annual event serves as the cornerstone of the new advances in cancer research at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute.

August 2012

We are honored to announce that Quality has been named a 2012 Inc. 5000 honoree. We are so proud of everyone at Quality for contributing to this great achievement to be named as one of the fastest growing private companies in America.

June 2012

Who says you can’t have fun at work?

We wouldn’t have it any other way here at Quality Healthcare Partners! This year, we are taking our team and their families to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic for some bonding, rest and relaxation. Paradise in December… here we come!

April 2012

Quality Healthcare Partners, Inc. is a proud sponsor of the Toni Turchi Foundation. We welcome you to visit Toni’s new website and join her in support of finding a prevention for breast cancer. www.toniturchifoundation.org

February 2012

HIMSS 12 Conference

Donna Eversole represented Quality at the annual HIMSS 2012 Conference this year from February 20-24 in Las Vegas.

This year’s conference offered an abundance of options to everyone in attendance. Some attended for education sessions, networking, job hunting, business-to-business meetings, updates on new, policies, products and services, vendor meetings and demonstrations, interoperability advances, or finding resources for employment openings.

Keynote speakers offered policy updates, stories of innovation, and interesting research on centurions and a cross-cultural longevity formula.

There were special sessions for Healthcare Systems Improvement, RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) and RTLS (Real Time Location Systems), CIO’s, Federal Healthcare IT, Health IT Ventures and Strategic Partners, Ambulatory professionals, HIT X.0 with glimpses of the future, Leaders and Innovators, Physician executives, HIT and Financial Technologies, Global Executives, Leadership and Development.

Regional networking meetings and special interest group meetings allowed folks time to share information and contacts for common interests and regional areas.

There were over 300 vendors with exhibits, including the largest interoperability demonstration ever. Many new vendors and new product exhibitions were present to promote and demonstrate their products.

The Stage 2 Meaningful Use requirements were released for review and comments during the conference.

There were multiple sessions on ICD-10 implementation. HIMSS has an ICD-10 Playbook to help guide hospitals with implementation projects; it can be found at: http://www.himss.org/asp/topics_ICD10Playbook.asp

HIMSS offered a prep course for CPHIMS Certification and offered the certification exam twice during the conference.

I strongly recommend attendance at the conference for personal growth, networking, and business development.

January 2012

Cleveland Clinic Ecatalyst Newsletter – “Celebrating Life” – http://my.clevelandclinic.org/giving/news-events/publications/catalyst_e_news/archive/7-12/celebrating-life.aspx

December 2011

Quality is committed to community outreach initiatives and touching the lives of healthcare patients. Throughout 2011, Quality has provided significant financial and participative support for such organizations as The Habitat for Humanity, The American Heart Association, Special Olympics, The Scott Hamilton CARES Initiative, The American Cancer Society, The American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, and local schools and food banks.

November 2011

On November 5, Quality Healthcare Partners, Inc. (Quality) was honored to be a sponsor at the 12th Annual Scott Hamilton & Friends Ice Show and Gala.

This year Quality invited guests to be seated at a table that featured representatives from both the Cleveland Clinic and executives from the Quality team. Quality’s guest of honor was a cancer patient currently receiving treatment at the Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute. Joining this patient was her husband and 10-year-old son. Many gala attendees inspired by her courageous story and journey, met with her – including gala host and cancer survivor Scott Hamilton. This year’s gala also included special musical guest Sheryl Crow.

Quality considers this patient and her family as members of its extended company family and plans to expand its outreach initiatives to further embrace the patient community for which it cares so deeply.

The Scott Hamilton CARES Initiative (CARES) was founded in 1999 as a partnership between Scott Hamilton, Olympic ice-skating champion and cancer survivor, and the Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute where Scott was treated. It was created to promote cancer awareness while raising significant funds for cancer research.

July 2011

HIStalk Interview With Mark Debnam, Founder and CEO, Quality Healthcare Partners

Give me a brief overview of yourself and the company

I founded the company in 2000. My first partner, Marty Zola, he’s our Chief Technology Officer, joined about three months later, followed in 2001 and in 2003 by our final two partners, who are with us still today Carol Wheeler and Donna Eversole.

We are very family-oriented company here. We’re a small company, about 20-25 folks, and we specialize in Healthcare IT. We cover just about everything out there. We have seven different application practice areas. We have eight management consulting-focused areas as well. We also do a lot of work in the hospital and medical office building architecture and construction work, in addition to infrastructure.

August 2010

Quality Healthcare Partners (Quality) is pleased to announce that it is leading the Meaningful Use analysis efforts for one of the largest multi-facility health systems in the country. While in the process of performing a detailed review of the Meaningful Use Final Rule and analysis of each of the Core, Menu Set and Clinical Measures, Quality is also assisting with identifying vendor gaps and standards needed for terminology. Meaningful Use attainment takes into account not only the ability to capture data, but submitting, organizing and monitoring data within the EHR. A few of the key areas of initial focus surround Problem List functionality, Emergency Department analysis and Quality Reporting tools.

May 2010

Quality is pleased to announce the release of the White Paper “What Every Healthcare Organization Should Know about Deploying IT When Planning and Designing a New Healthcare Facility”. The paper is intended for healthcare organizations that are embarking on a major construction project and would like advice from senior managers who have worked through construction projects. The advice in this paper should help you to get your construction project off to a good start and to avoid the problems that are common to new healthcare facilities.

February 2010

Quality Healthcare Partners (Quality) recently won another IT Infrastructure new construction project with a major health system in the West. Quality’s IT Infrastructure Practice assists clients with deployment and configurations of IT infrastructure during healthcare facility construction. Quality applies a unique blend of clinical, healthcare operations, and technical infrastructure knowledge from planning to project completion. During the past year alone, Quality has managed or assisted eight deployment projects ranging from supporting community hospitals, specialty hospitals, medical office buildings, behavioral health facilities, and large academic medical centers. Quality implements key leading technologies to the success of new facilities including RFID, real-time tracking, wireless phones/badges, teleconferencing, wireless networks, distributed antenna systems, lights out data center operations, disaster recovery planning, green technologies, and security.

Says Mark Debnam, President and CEO of Quality Healthcare Partners, “We are very pleased with the success and rapid growth of our healthcare IT facilities construction offering. Often during facility construction, key emerging technologies along with attention to clinical and administrative workflow are overlooked. Our IT Infrastructure Practice focuses on these critical elements and ensures a successful outcome with each engagement. We are enjoying its growth, and how well the Practice complements our highly successful Cerner, Epic and QuadraMed systems practices.”

November 2009

Quality announces the addition of Midas+ and McKesson Paragon to its applications consulting services offerings which currently include Cerner, Epic, Siemens, QuadraMed, Eclipsys, and GE Centricity.

Visit HIStalk

Quality announces that it has recently become a Gold Sponsor of HIStalk. Keeping up to date on healthcare news is key for all of us here at Quality, and we are very impressed with the content, contributions, and delivery of the information HIStalk provides. It is clear that a lot of time and effort is given to each HIStalk publication.