Medium Weight Activities that Coordinate with Quality Measures

Medium-weight activities count for 10 improvement points. Each practice needs a total of 40 points.

This can be met by

•       • Two high-weight activities
•       • One high-weight activity (see article) and two medium-weight activities
•       • Four medium-weight activities

For small practices (or practices in a rural or health professional shortage area) the points are doubled. A medium-weight activity then counts for 20 improvement points. You can get your 40 points with two medium-weight activities.

This article address two medium-weight activities that dovetail nicely with quality measures. You need to report on 6 quality measures.

Advance Care Planning

To meet Advance Care Planning Improvement Activity, you will need to implement a procedure or process to develop advance care planning or a living will within the medical record.

The process should include:

•       • Education or clinicians and staff on Advance Care Planning.;
•       • Have them understand how advance care planning meets the needs of your patients;
•       • How these needs can translate into quality improvements;
•       • Consider how to approach talking to patients about end-of-life and palliative care needs and the barriers you staff may encounter.

Document the process so that your staff are able to have these conversations with patients. This is an improvement activity that can be met whether or not you have an EHR system.

This improvement activity ties in with Quality Measure 47: Advanced Care Planning.

Implementation of Fall Screening and Assessment Programs

To meet Implementation of Fall Screening and Assessment Program Improvement Activity, you need to create a plan to identify patients at risk for falls.

The process should include:

•       • The clinical steps that will identify at risk patients;
•       • The steps to take when a patient is identified as being at risk

Document your plan and educate your staff on how to implement the screening, assessment, and documentation.

This improvement activity ties in with Quality Measure 155: Developing Fall Plan of Care.

A patients medication may be a factor in the patient being at risk of falls. Checking the patients medication list should be part of the clinical steps of fall risk evaluation.

This will help you meet Quality Measure 130: Review Medications.

Completing these two improvement activities not only helps you meet half of the improvement points (or all the improvement points if you are a small office), they also coordinate with hitting 3 quality measures.