“Thank you. It hardly seems like a year since we unveiled CMS’ 16 strategic initiatives. I couldn’t be prouder or more thankful for the hard work of the CMS team, and the efforts of all of you in the audience. As we work on these initiatives, we are also quantifying and measuring our progress and have identified objectives and key results for each to hold ourselves accountable.”
“CMS also has three main objectives, which are:
“Improve the quality and affordability of healthcare for all Americans; drive American healthcare towards payment for value, not volume; and lower the rate of growth in America’s healthcare spending…”
“So today I want to unveil CMS’ new, reimagined quality strategy that will implement that vision. Last year, we launched a framework for ensuring safety and quality in nursing homes. This framework has shaped all of our work on nursing home quality, and in fact, was so successful that we decided to replicate it across the agency and in all our programs in 2020 and beyond.”
“First, we will establish clear and reasonable expectations for quality by setting government standards and quality measures… in other words, the rules of the road. Second, we will strengthen our oversight and enforcement of those standards to ensure accountability. Third, we will promote transparency, competition, and consumer choice by providing the public with the information needed to make decisions about their care; and fourth, we will work to modernize quality improvement efforts for all through advances in data analytics and technology, while prioritizing resources for those that need it most.”
“Allow me to take each pillar in turn…” Read the full speech here.
Source: Speech: Remarks by CMS Administrator Seema Verma at the 2020 CMS Quality Conference – By Seema Verma, February 25, 2020. CMS.
