Care Collaborative

The University of Kansas Health System Care Collaborative is a patient safety organization (PSO) dedicated to delivering high-quality clinical care to improve the health of people living in rural Kansas communities. Founded in 2014 and accredited by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the collaborative is a network of healthcare providers and care teams who use evidence-based treatment models to achieve the best outcomes.

People across Kansas benefit by receiving high-quality care close to home since healthcare organizations across 2/3 of the state are current members of the collaborative. With 9,000 provider attendees across time-critical diagnosis and chronic condition training programs, patients experiencing a stroke, heart attack, sepsis, COVID-19, heart failure or diabetes are treated under standardized protocols and best practice guidelines. Most important, on-site rural boot camps allow an individual community’s physicians, advanced practice providers, nurses, pharmacists and EMS teams to be educated on the latest research, all at the same time. Combined with implementation support tools and ongoing Care Collaborative webinars and staff resources, this educational model is measurably improving patient care.

PSOs focus on improving healthcare quality and patient safety by reducing the occurrence of adverse events that harm patients. They help provider members collect and analyze data to inform and implement care and process improvements. Through our groundbreaking partnership with Vizient, participating rural hospitals have access to Quality 101 training programs and resources, as well.

Care Collaborative programs apply evidence-based care protocols at the local level to improve outcomes while helping patients stay in their own communities. Our members seek to improve the health of their communities through partnership with The University of Kansas Health System, a leading academic medical center.

Members of PSOs experience diverse benefits, including:

• Evaluating quality and safety events in a confidential environment in an effort to learn and improve
• Leveraging the value of deidentified data, both in comparison with peers and in aggregate, to learn from the combined experience of members
• Receiving objective, expert advice on improving the quality and safety of patient care

Through our rural Accountable Care Organization, Kansas Clinical Improvement Collaborative (KCIC), we have provided more than 144,000 chronic care management and remote patient monitoring visits. This is a preventive service that doctors can recommend for Medicare and Medicaid patients with multiple conditions like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, heart disease and arthritis. Health coaches partner with patients to help them set relevant goals and make better health decisions to achieve them, such as those regarding diet and exercise.

KCIC also works with academic medical center researchers and state and federal grant programs, bringing opportunities for rural clinics to participate in the future of care, including colorectal screening best practices, workforce development programs, high-risk maternity remote monitoring, return-to-work nurse navigation and tele-behavioral health and tele-endocrinology services. These projects are designed to test new models of care, working toward continuous improvement for rural patients.

Working together, Care Collaborative members can better identify patients who will benefit from these programs and provide a higher quality of care. We provide comprehensive training at each member site for each program as well as development opportunities throughout the year to sharpen and enhance each site's capabilities, apply standard order sets and partner with local resources to provide care to meet the needs of patients and families.