CMS has announced new awards to a dozen regional organizations to create new initiatives or expand existing plans for improving quality for Medicare beneficiaries.

The twelve Quality Innovation Network-Quality Improvement Organizations (QIN-QIOs) will split 20 Special Innovation Project Awards under two different categories. The first involves projects addressing quality issues within the organization’s local service area. The second has a broader scope, focusing on applying lesson learned from local projects to quality improvement on a national level.

“These high leverage topic areas include streamlining patient flow in health care settings; working with health plans and care coordination providers on approaches to post-acute care that results in enhanced care management; increasing value, patient affordability, and appropriate use of specialty drugs by applying evidenced based criteria to prescribing practices; addressing acute pain management in sickle cell patients; and utilizing big data analytics to reduce preventable harm in health care,” CMS wrote in a blog post.

Examples of projects funded under this broader, nationally-focused plan include a New York network of physician offices, hospitals and nursing homes standardizing prescribing practices for anticoagulants. Another project involves 30 emergency departments in Georgia and North Carolina collaborating on improving triage and treatment for sickle cell disease patients.