3/22+ CEU Courses in Spanish

The Advanced Renal Education Center offers an extensive list of recorded online courses on kidney health and treatments, some of which are also offered in Spanish, and some of which are also offered for continuing education credits.  They have scheduled Spanish-language online continuing-education webinars on Fundamentals of PD for March 22, 2019 and on Peritonitis in PD for March 28, 2019.  See https://www.advancedrenaleducation.com/elearning/all for details.  The Advanced Renal Education Center is created and maintained by Fresenius, but their courses are open to everyone.

5/31 NHSN Training

Required Annual Training: The Dialysis Event Module annual training has been updated and moved to a new platform called CDC TRAIN.  Self-paced training and post-assessment will remain the same as the previous version, but the CDC TRAIN platform requires you to register with the site, and allows you to save your training certificates after completion.  NHSN recommends that all users take this training, but at least one user per facility is required to take and pass this training annually.  Find the training course and instruction guide at https://www.cdc.gov/nhsn/dialysis/event/index.html.  Email NHSN@cdc.gov with “Dialysis” in the subject line with any questions.

Training Needs Assessment: In taking the NHSN Dialysis Event Module Training Needs Assessment, some users experienced a system error which only permitted them to complete the Demographics section of the survey.  If you experienced this, please retake the Assessment, at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/DialysisEventTNA. NHSN apologizes for the inconvenience and truly values your input.  If you have not taken the Assessment yet, please do, to help NHSN better understand training needs for the Dialysis Event Module.  The Assessment will remain open until May 31, 2019.

3/16 NW18 UCI Health WKD Symposium

UC Irvine Health will present a free March 16, 2019 World Kidney Day symposium in Orange, CA on Kidney health, featuring leading experts in Nephrology, Urology, Transplant, and Nutrition.  Patients, providers, and community members are all invited to enjoy a day of education, health screenings, refreshments, and live entertainment.  For details see https://twitter.com/IFKF_/status/1103801441846587392 and https://www.facebook.com/events/638668909886763/?notif_t=event_invite_reminder&notif_id=1551199891724380.

4/5 DFC Technical Expert Panel Nominations

CMS has commissioned UM-KECC to assemble 10-20 volunteers for a Technical Expert Panel (TEP) to formulate a process for periodically resetting ESRD clinical quality Star-Rating criteria so that the Ratings continue to differentiate facility quality of care when treatment-quality trends reduce the variation between facilities.  Volunteers will include patients, caregivers, ESRD subject matter experts, methodologists, and specialists working on dialysis QI and healthcare disparities.  The TEP will require a one-day in-person meeting in Baltimore in June, plus 3-7 conference calls before and after.  Nominations must be submitted by April 5, 2019.  The current call for nominations doesn’t mention it, but past TEPs have reimbursed travel expenses.  For details and nomination forms, see https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Quality-Initiatives-Patient-Assessment-Instruments/MMS/TEP-Currently-Accepting-Nominations.html#a0305.

“It’s Your Choice” Campaign

As we all know, many patients crash into dialysis.  This leaves them feeling poorly with no time to really learn about modality options or all the other choices that they have for optimal care that fits them best.  We want patients to know that they have choices and we want to help direct them to where they can find information or tools to help them make informed decisions regarding their dialysis care.

We are kicking off the It’s Your Choice Campaign.  We will be sending you various patient focused resources to distribute.  You can be creative in the distribution.  One month you can just print and hand them out to your patients.  Maybe the next month, you have it printed poster size and post it by the scale, depending on the resource.  It’s your choice!

We also would encourage you to let us know if you have a patient resource that has been particularly helpful in supporting optimal kidney care.  We would love to add it to our library.  In the future we plan to have a whole webpage dedicated to It’s Your Choice with a variety of resources for dialysis and CKD patients, including flyers, brochures, posters and maybe even a podcast with timely information.

3/14 CDC Webinar on BSI and Incident HD Access

CDC will present a March 14, 2019 World Kidney Day webinar on Incident Vascular Access and Risk of Bloodstream Infection Among New ESRD Patients Receiving Hemodialysis, followed by a conversation about achieving optimal vascular access for patient safety.  CME, CNE, CEU, CECH, CPE, and CPH continuing education credits are available.  Find more information and register at https://cc.readytalk.com/registration/#/?meeting=f8wbng3dtcpm&campaign=vq0d1qix86ac.

QIP News: PSSRs, NHSN Deadline, Pain Assessment

PSSRs: CMS has announced that PY2019 Performance Score Summary Reports or PSSRs are now available.  The PSSR is a spreadsheet containing the performance values of each facility for PY2019.  It provides information about facility performance on each ESRD QIP measure as well as the Total Performance Score.  Find the PSSRs at https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Quality-Initiatives-Patient-Assessment-Instruments/ESRDQIP/Downloads/PY2019-Performance-Score-Summary-Report-.XLSX.  It’s a 12+ megabyte file, so it may take several minutes to download and open.

NHSN: CMS has also announced an extension to the NHSN data entry deadline for the ESRD QIP fourth reporting quarter of 2018 (data for October 1 – December 31, 2018) from March 31, 2019 to April 1, 2019.

Assistance regarding PSSRs or the NHSN deadline can be obtained by contacting the ESRD QIP Support Team using the ESRD QIP Q&A Tool at https://cms-ocsq.custhelp.com/app/homeesrdqip/p/960.  For questions or concerns regarding use of the ESRD QIP system, contact the QualityNet Help Desk at qnetsupport-esrd@hcqis.org or 866-288-8912 between 5am and 7pm PT Monday-Friday.

Pain Assessment data submission into CROWNWeb will no longer be required by CMS starting March 1, 2019.  The Pain Assessment screen will remain active for facilities to review previously reported data.  For details see http://mycrownweb.org/2019/02/pain-assessment-submission/.