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New QUERI VISN Partnerships

Implementation strategies are crucial for supporting VA’s efforts to achieve core features common to Learning Health Care Systems and High-Reliability Health Care Organizations. By promoting state-of-the-art methods that align organizational priorities with frontline provider engagement, QUERI drives adoption of effective practices that achieve the best possible outcomes within a sustainable cost. Co-led by VISN leaders and VA implementation experts, QUERI-VISN PIIs focus on the deployment of effective practices that support healthcare priorities selected by VISN leadership. Members of VA’s National Leadership Council (NLC) voted on top healthcare priority goals from a list of 15+ topics initially nominated by VISN leaders and facility Chiefs of Staff. The NLC voted the following as their top three healthcare priorities:

• Implement effective care coordination models for community care,
• Enhance implementation of suicide prevention services, and
• Improve access to medication-assisted therapy for opioid use disorder treatment and alternative therapies for pain.

QUERI-VISN PIIs are promoting the scale-up and spread of effective practices by addressing these priorities across VISNs, focusing on facilities that demonstrate gaps in quality or outcomes related to the healthcare priority. PII programs include:

• Effective Hospital Practices to Prevent Immediate and Delayed Opioid Adverse Events While Improving Pain and Functional Outcomes; Iowa City Veterans Healthcare System.
• Implementing Caring Contacts for Suicide Prevention in Non-Mental Health Settings; Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System.
• Increasing Access to Medication-Assisted Treatment in VISN 22; Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System.
• Facilitated Practice Redesign to Address the Opioid Epidemics; VA Connecticut Healthcare System.
• Making Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) Available at CBOCs Using Telemedicine; VA Connecticut Healthcare System.

For more information about QUERI-VISN PIIs, contact QUERI Program Manager, Melissa Braganza, MBBS, at Melissa.Braganza@va.gov .