S4 E1 - National Committee for Quality Assurance | Accreditation Explained

Katie White [: 00:00:00

Welcome to Pretend I Know Nothing About. I'm Katie White, your host, administrator of COAAA. On today's episode, we will hear from Carrie and Kayla about all things NCQA, the National Committee for Quality Assurance. Let's get into it. Well, welcome to the podcast season four kickoff. Hard to believe. We've got a lot to talk about. So today I am joined by Carrie Oswald and Kayla Humphrey and we are going to be learning about NCQA.

Katie White [: 00:00:46

So before we get into the details of it, Kayla, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Kayla Humphrey [: 00:00:50

Yeah, so I am, I've been with COAAA about three years now. I have started an assessment, moved to this work within the last gosh, year and a half now. And I'm also the chair of the Pride Committee. Try to do a couple of different things here. So currently I am a management analyst and really focusing on trying to walk the agency through this NCQA process.

Katie White [: 00:01:22

Awesome. And you're a licensed social worker? I am. Okay.

Kayla Humphrey [: 00:01:24

Yes ma'.

Katie White [: 00:01:25

Am. Thank you. And Carrie.

Carrie Oswald [: 00:01:27

Yeah, hello. Thanks for having us talking about NCQA. So I have been here for about 11 years. I've done case management and supervision and Ohio home care waiver and now we are deep in quality and compliance work. Kayla and I have been working together for the last year and a half and I'm a licensed social worker and it's really cool to come at this work through an administrative lens and a leadership lens, but also have all the background in the clinical work. So Kayla and I make a. I feel like we make a great team on this for sure.

Katie White [: 00:02:01

I agree. And I've been getting updates sporadically and tracking of course, and hearing all of the great things. But I'm excited today to really get into all the details and the ins and outs. So let's start just by defining it. What is NCQA and what the heck are you guys doing?

Kayla Humphrey [: 00:02:22

So NCQA is the National Committee for Quality Assurance and they're a nonprofit organization that really kind of set standards for those of us providing care to consumers. So really making sure that we are providing that like person centered, consistent clinical care to consumers. And so that is kind of what we have started is taking a look at what we do and kind of what we need to bolster or build up.

Katie White [: 00:02:55

Okay. And I know our history at coaa. We really pride ourselves on how excellent our clinical care is and this is a third party way to evaluate that and really standardize and say, yes, your clinical care truly is excellent.

Carrie Oswald [: 00:03:10

Yeah, absolutely.

Katie White [: 00:03:12

So Carrie, why does NCQA matter to us? Why are we doing this.

Carrie Oswald [: 00:03:16

Well, for us, it's really getting that recognition. Like you said, Katie, we know we've been doing great clinical work, but to be able to put this stamp on it and say, hey, we're also accredited. So it is formalizing and adding measures for us so that we can have documented processes and then we can look back, analyze our outcomes and continue to make improvements. That's what NCQA is all about. So when we started this, Kayla and I, I think as we got under the hood and we're looking at all of the different programs, we were like, okay, yes, we've been saying we're doing good clinical work and we certainly are doing good clinical work. But what we hadn't been doing so much is really outlining a full process of every single step to do an assessment, every single step to measure the successfulness of an intervention. We're doing those things, but we're not necessarily writing the work down.

Katie White [: 00:04:09

Interesting.

Carrie Oswald [: 00:04:10

And we're not always going back and evaluating that at the year end to say, what did we do last year? What can we do better to improve it? And so Kayla and I just have been really jazzed about doing that and saying, oh my gosh, we, we get to do all the work we've been doing, but be a part of uplifting it, telling our story more clear or more clearly, and then also making changes to do things better, more streamlined. I also wanted to point out too that for NCQA, they're a behemoth of an accreditation organization and they have all sorts of different types of accreditations. We are getting the LTSS accreditation, which is perfect because that is our wheelhouse. We are the experts in long term care and supports. So that is the accreditation we will be getting. But just for our listeners too, is that they may see NCQA all over the place, hospitals. So there's all sorts of different types of accreditations you can get.

Katie White [: 00:05:09

Okay, so we're going after the long term services and supports accreditation, correct?

Carrie Oswald [: 00:05:14

Yep.

Katie White [: 00:05:15

Which will be related to our assessments and our case management. And an NCQA creates the framework. So it's not just are you doing things right, but it's also document every single step of how you're doing it and then continuously monitor to make sure you're meeting that expectation.

Carrie Oswald [: 00:05:36

That is like the light bulb of what we have found. Right, Kayla?

Kayla Humphrey [: 00:05:39

Yeah, I would say it was a huge thing for us. We kept calling it show your work was. There were all of these incredible things that we knew were happening, but it was like, now we needed to show that we continue to do these things that we say and that we can prove that we do so that we have these metrics and this data that really shows this is the great work we do and this is why, or maybe this is a trend we need to adapt to. And it showed us all of that, which has been really neat, I think.

Katie White [: 00:06:10

And so I know we'll get into the process, but can you give me an example of one of those? Like, you know, I love numbers and data. So I'm picturing, like, how this is on the dashboard. Is it percentage of assessments? Like, I shouldn't even try to make one up. Tell me some of the measures.

Kayla Humphrey [: 00:06:25

So some of our measures are participation rates, timeliness of assessments, timeliness of care plan completion. And the kind of. The interesting thing is NCQA allows us to really choose what metrics are most important to us to track to our consumers.

Katie White [: 00:06:45

Oh, okay. I like that.

Kayla Humphrey [: 00:06:47

So we were able to. To choose the completion of assessment as our time measure. We were able to choose the care plan as our time measure. And so there are a couple different things throughout that they have us measure like that or even, like, trainings that we provide. So. Yeah, so as far as, like, numbers and percentages. Yeah, they have us calculate a lot of those, which is really interesting.

Katie White [: 00:07:13

And then we get to select what's most important to us. And I assume that can change as we need it to change and evolve.

Carrie Oswald [: 00:07:19

Absolutely, absolutely. So they don't define even the like, hey, we want you to have assessments done in 30 days. They're not the ones saying that. They're just saying, what is the metric you want to monitor? What is the, you know, the parameters of that metric? And then we need to see a full report on your qualitative and your quantitative analysis every year. And then we need to see what you're doing to make improvements on that.

Kayla Humphrey [: 00:07:44

Interesting.

Carrie Oswald [: 00:07:44

So it was like, to me, it just was, whoa. You know, I think when we started this, we're thinking outcomes, we're looking at charts, we're looking at clinical work. Of course we are. And that is a piece of it. But to be entirely honest, it's almost a tiny piece of the accreditation process. That's kind of like the afterthought. They're like, okay, we will look at some charts. We want to make sure you're doing the work.

Carrie Oswald [: 00:08:04

But three quarters of the work is, do you have the framework and are you doing all of the ongoing analysis of your programs? So it helps to really make sure you're consistent in your measuring. And once we had That I think we both got even more excited about it because we were both like, oh, my gosh, this is cool. But also just, it really was a light bulb of like, what NCQA is all about.

Katie White [: 00:08:30

Yeah. And then being able to modify it to meet your own needs. Because if it's a national accreditation, every contract requirement, you know, state Medicaid requirement is going to be different. So. Okay. Oh, I'm getting it. I'm getting it. Okay.

Carrie Oswald [: 00:08:44

Well, and to your point, Katie, like.

Kayla Humphrey [: 00:08:46

Of us being able to choose those and maybe change those metrics, we also have this really. They encourage us to make sure that we possibly take a look at those each year to make sure we're meeting trends, even. So to say, are we looking at the right thing for our consumers this year, not just doing the exact same thing because it's the same way we've always done it.

Katie White [: 00:09:09

Yes. Yes. We definitely want to continue to evaluate and evolve the agency. I love it.

Kayla Humphrey [: 00:09:15

Yes, ma'.

Katie White [: 00:09:16

Am. Okay, so connect it kind of to our everyday work right now. What's this looking like?

Kayla Humphrey [: 00:09:22

So I think connecting to our everyday work, really what we're. Carrie kind of spoke to it briefly, but what we're really doing is saying, going and talking with folks and saying, okay, tell us what you do. Tell us the breakdown of the work that you do every day of the processes. And then we're saying, okay, let's write these down so that we can make sure that we have something to refer to. And we're continuing to make sure that folks get trained the same across the agency and those kinds of things. We're really just simplifying or simply refining our practices, making them more consistent across the teams and really just ensuring that they stand up to external review. So we're not just saying we do great work, but we have even other people saying, oh, look, we did it. And you guys, in fact, do amazing work.

Katie White [: 00:10:12

And we have started this or had this from my understanding, sort of in our route sheets. Right, Absolutely. The route sheets are saying, here's what you need to do. Here are the steps to do it. And for the most part, those are pretty consistent. But this is truly that formalized way of making sure it's consistent and then checking ourselves on it.

Carrie Oswald [: 00:10:32

That's exactly right. We have route sheets, we have memos, we have our ODA Operations guide. We have all these things that we've been using for years, and they're wonderful tools, but we don't necessarily have our own internal policies that we have created based on these things. So we're like, yes, look at the route sheet and absolutely, a day to day case manager, it is a vital tool. But to have this full document about, here's the why, here's how it relates to the manual and here's the connection to larger practice standards. That's what Kayla and I are creating. And now does that impact day to day work? Not necessarily, but it ensures our consistency over the years. I feel like for day to day I think that Passport and ALW case managers are mostly seeing that most of the work is exactly the same, it hasn't changed so much.

Carrie Oswald [: 00:11:26

But what we've asked them to do is define a little further. If somebody has a need for a mobility device, we're asking them to put a timeframe on that, to put a specific need on that and then we're asking them to follow up on that, basically smart goals and they need to measure and show progression.

Katie White [: 00:11:48

Okay.

Carrie Oswald [: 00:11:49

And that's kind of hard for us to understand when we're thinking like ltss folks who need this care and support for likely the span of the rest of their lives. So it was a little bit helping everyone to get on board to understand what we say progression. We're not talking about you no longer need a mobility device, which was at first kind of like, well, what the heck are you guys expecting from this? But what we want to see is that they received the device, that now they were trained in how to use it and now they're having more access to the places they want to go. So it's kind of helping us to really zero in on what is success, what is a personalized goal. We've been doing those, but I would say that this is pushing us to really thinking about them even more in an advanced, very specific way. You agree, Kayla?

Katie White [: 00:12:39

Yeah.

Kayla Humphrey [: 00:12:39

And honestly, that's something that I think Carrie and I have really appreciated about NCQA is that we know here at COAA we really focus on that person centered care. But NCQA really builds that into their standards to say when we look at a consumer's chart, we don't want this to look like every consumer. We want to know who we're talking to and what is specific to them. And it was really kind of cool to have that conversation with assessors and case managers to say, you guys are having these conversations, you guys are asking these, these amazing questions and building your rapport. Maybe we just have to ask them a little differently or maybe we just need to get a little bit more information on, you know, Mrs. So and so and so. I think that has Been really cool for us to be able to also, you know, not drink the Kool Aid, but we truly believe in all of the stuff that nc. We're seeing the work and we're seeing it really matter when it's coming to like our folks going out into homes too.

Carrie Oswald [: 00:13:42

Oh, my gosh. I just have to shout this out really quickly. At our last passport meeting, we were at case manager, who we did not pay to say this, raised their hand and said, you know, I'm actually having more meaningful conversations and I'm getting better information from our updated templates. And Kayla and I about I think this out, right? Because we thought, yes, I mean, it really does help. And we didn't retool the templates and tools entirely. Our goal has been to make as minimal change as possible to make sure that we're not making unnecessary work for folks. And so just with a few extra questions, I think people are seeing like, oh yeah, I am getting more information.

Katie White [: 00:14:23

That's great. So your comment on having a meeting leads me into the approach. Right. So we understand what NCQA is and what our ultimate goal is. But walk me through your approach. What's your process right now across the agency guys doing?

Kayla Humphrey [: 00:14:40

Yeah, so we, we kind of started with what we called the full gap analysis. And so we really started speaking with everyone that would talk to us in passport and assisted living, both assessment and case management.

Katie White [: 00:14:57

Okay.

Kayla Humphrey [: 00:14:58

To really ask and kind of understand what their processes already were, what were, what was in place, and kind of take a look at what are, what do we already have versus what do we need. So then once we did that gap analysis with them, we really started to have conversations deeper with Passport supervisors of, okay, maybe we don't have a written process for some of these things, but tell us what are some great things you teach? What are things that you guys are doing? Help us write these out, help us make these accurate. And so we really worked with them to start creating some of those processes and things and making sure that they as accurately represented those programs as possible as they are the program experts. And then from there we really just started taking a look at once those processes are in place, how do we then roll that out to folks? So then we started meeting with assessors once a month. We met with case managers, I think every, almost every two weeks for a while and really just walking them through to help them understand if there is a question we added to a template or an assess assessment, making sure they understood why not just saying, hey, we need you to start asking this question but hey, ask this question because this makes the consumer feel X, Y and Z. And that's what we want. And really trying to share with everyone the minimal but necessary changes we made to then also say to or then to then also educate and say and this is what you can expect from the consumer and really trying to build that up to make folks understand that like this really is about just providing better service and not so much about shucks. There's one more question I got.

Katie White [: 00:16:45

Yeah, it's not about checking the boxes. It really continues to go back to that person centered care. It's really cool.

Carrie Oswald [: 00:16:52

It is pretty cool. So like, so Caleb did the gap in it, I mean like a deep review of all sorts of documents and then like you said, creating the documents was a big stage of our work, educating on the new processes. And then Kayla and I next week will finish a seven week process that we are just finishing where we went through one standard. So there are seven standards in the accreditation and we went through one standard a week, read the standard line by line again together, looked at what we created, looked at outstanding things. So that was what we're just finishing up. So we really, we're coming full circle and it feels really good because we're like okay. But after some of these materials were created in January. So at this point we really needed to go back and review everything and say okay, now that we know what this is, are we still thinking about this in the same way? And what's been really neat is we've discovered a lot of the standards, I would say actually all of it, it all connects.

Carrie Oswald [: 00:17:54

So we already see where our RE accreditation we should be able to condense a lot of the standards into maybe just instead of three standards covering this particular metric, we can actually do that into one. We're not ready to do that this time around. But that's like we already are seeing the refinements for reaccreditation so.

Katie White [: 00:18:14

And I want to give you guys credit too for the process. I love an inclusive planning process. I feel like top down approach is just absolutely never it. And I have to, you know, really raise up the fact that you guys did that so well from your. I feel like you had like first some donut meetings like stop in, just ask us questions. Right. But the level of kind of going back and talking to people and saying like getting their feedback and getting their ideas, incorporating it in and then hearkening back to it when you're educating on. Remember this is what you told us.

Katie White [: 00:18:48

So I just have to give you huge kudos for that because that is something that's so important to me. And I think it really helps to drive buy in across the agency too. And then the other thing I love about this conversation and most conversations on the podcast is just, just seeing people light up around the details of their work. You know, what we do here is so hard, right? Our day in, our day and out, day in, day out work here is just, it's intense and there are good days, but there's certainly a lot of challenging days too. And so to know that despite the work being hard, it still is something that's so passionate. And then my third and final just, you know, happy thought is that macro social work doesn't get a ton of limelight and a ton of energy and excitement, but this is macro social work, like, to a T and at its finest. Right. Like you, you are working on designing the clinical processes and evaluation and impact that we have at this agency.

Katie White [: 00:19:46

It's. It's awesome.

Carrie Oswald [: 00:19:47

So, okay, I feel like if someone told me, you know, maybe in grad school, you are going to light up talking about NCQA accreditation, I think I'd be like, oh, gosh, wow, how exciting. But truly, I do light up talking about. Because I think it's so fancy, like it fits into our skills. Well, we're really interested in it. I love, I always say something, at 11 years being here, I have discovered that I want to be a social worker for social workers.

Kayla Humphrey [: 00:20:13

Oh, yeah.

Carrie Oswald [: 00:20:13

That's where my passion comes in. I love our consumers, but ultimately I serve our consumers by serving our staff. And this feels like maybe staff don't see that right now. I can't say they're totally on board, but this feels like we are setting a really good framework for our team so that they can go out and do the work and not be encumbered by a bunch of unnecessary stuff.

Katie White [: 00:20:38

Well, and not only for that piece of it, but also, you know, we're in a competitive market. We as area agencies on aging are not guaranteed any of this work. And we're certainly learning that as things are seemingly unraveling constantly at the federal level. But being NCQA accredited is a premier accreditation. It means something really important and holds a lot of clout in the world of clinical services. And so just like you're serving the staff here in various ways for processes and being person centered, it's also to protect our space in this world as well.

Carrie Oswald [: 00:21:16

Absolutely.

Katie White [: 00:21:17

So, okay, we need to circle back a little bit on the timeline of accreditation. Walk us through what the Accreditation requirements are because you said you're coming full circle on some things. So explain that process.

Carrie Oswald [: 00:21:32

Yeah.

Kayla Humphrey [: 00:21:32

So we applied for accreditation. We received actually we received the standards first and then we applied for accreditation. Really the things since then are our survey will start in October, but we have a six month look back period. So what that means is really starting April 1st, any consumer really enrolled who has been enrolled for 60 days becomes part of our universe. Which means NCQA can say that one, I want to look at that chart.

Katie White [: 00:22:09

Okay.

Kayla Humphrey [: 00:22:10

And they can audit it.

Katie White [: 00:22:11

Okay.

Kayla Humphrey [: 00:22:12

And so what we have really done was gearing up before April. I think we started January 1st was when we really rolled out to. We started to roll out to assessment the changes because we wanted to make sure we had time to sit with them, educate, coach, and to make sure that assessments looked picture perfect by look back period.

Katie White [: 00:22:33

Okay.

Kayla Humphrey [: 00:22:33

And then I think starting in February, we started to meet with case managers doing very similar things, going over kind of little tweaks that they may need to make to the, to like when they meet with consumers and then really meeting with them and doing that education and coaching. And then we started to do audit. So then all of the things that they were case managers and assessors were doing, we were going through and looking at every chart and sending that back.

Katie White [: 00:23:01

That was March. Yeah, mostly in March. Okay. So you began our own internal audits, making sure that once our look back period started, which is in April, that we would be in pretty good shape.

Carrie Oswald [: 00:23:12

Yep, absolutely. Okay.

Katie White [: 00:23:13

Yeah.

Kayla Humphrey [: 00:23:13

We really wanted to have enough time to go back, work with folks, coach them so that no one felt like, oh my gosh, it's April 1st, I have to get this right immediately. We didn't want that pressure.

Katie White [: 00:23:24

Yeah.

Kayla Humphrey [: 00:23:25

Really wanted to make sure they had enough time. And so then as they started doing those audits, we continued to send them and then we were able to pull. Okay, what are the things that are hard for folks to like grab onto, to ask, to remember. And then we started our review of all of the policies and things that we've created. And then I think next we're going to be going through everything to make sure all the formatting is the same. We have to bookmark or highlight which specific areas of our policies tie to a standard. So we have to label all of those.

Katie White [: 00:24:00

Okay. Wow.

Carrie Oswald [: 00:24:01

So that's gonna be the big piece is preparing all the documents for the survey. The survey is what they call like the accreditation or audit process. But every single policy or document we're giving them, they want to see it highlighted and commented, what is this exact standard? And what factor in the standard are you speaking to?

Katie White [: 00:24:21

Wow.

Carrie Oswald [: 00:24:22

So the. Basically, they want to be able to look at your document like, bing, bing, bing, bing. Do you have it? Do you not? So that we're planning to do. I think we start the end of July working on that. And then there's this piece of the work that Kayla and I have been talking about, the analysis, all the reporting. So in the standards, they say you have to have done this at least within the six months of your accreditation date. So Kayla and I have set aside October that we have, or August that we have to go back and do all of that analysis. So we have a lot of reporting that we've written the procedures for, but we haven't necessarily done the legwork of here's our report, because that's what Kayla and I will hold ongoingly.

Carrie Oswald [: 00:25:05

So in August, we'll be diving in and actually doing some of the meat and potatoes of what's our outcome here? What's our suggested improvement? What measure are we gonna look at next year? So we'll be actually doing some of that work come August. And then we upload all of this information, which I imagine is going to be literally hundreds of documents, into the NCQA tool. They don't look at our stuff. We have to give it to them. And then they'll begin auditing us in October 6th, and we meet with them the week of Thanksgiving to get some preliminary feedback.

Katie White [: 00:25:44

So between October and November, you won't hear anything.

Carrie Oswald [: 00:25:46

We won't hear anything.

Katie White [: 00:25:48

Oh, that feels scary.

Carrie Oswald [: 00:25:49

That feels weird. Yes.

Katie White [: 00:25:51

Or maybe you don't feel great. I don't know.

Carrie Oswald [: 00:25:53

Well, they had this tool that we have to use. It's called the irt, but they say, oh, you can get a preliminary score. So Kayla and I have been so excited. We're like, oh, we're upload this. We can even, you know, we'll be able to tell Katie what we think our score will be. Well, here you just guess your own score.

Katie White [: 00:26:09

Oh.

Kayla Humphrey [: 00:26:09

So you select whether or not you met it.

Carrie Oswald [: 00:26:12

I don't know.

Kayla Humphrey [: 00:26:13

It'll tell you. And I was like, okay, that doesn't seem right.

Carrie Oswald [: 00:26:15

So that was a little bit. Yeah. We were really excited for, like, this. Like, this meeting that we're gonna have with the set team. We're gonna be like, we're gonna get a 98. And then we're like, oh, okay. No, actually, we're just guessing here.

Katie White [: 00:26:27

You tell me what you think you're doing.

Kayla Humphrey [: 00:26:30

I will say, though, during that Time that like where they come back with the preliminary time that we did find.

Katie White [: 00:26:36

Out, which we thought was kind of.

Kayla Humphrey [: 00:26:37

Interesting that they can come back at that time and almost kinda seems almost.

Katie White [: 00:26:42

Like a second chance to say, hey.

Kayla Humphrey [: 00:26:44

We see what you have here, but maybe we need another example. We need a little bit more. Can you show us proof of this? And we actually have a little bit of time to then provide them additional stuff.

Katie White [: 00:26:56

That's good. Even more reason to feel like this is person centered. Right. It's not about like pass, fail. It's about we want to get you to the place where you're achieving these. That's good.

Carrie Oswald [: 00:27:07

Absolutely. Yeah. We can't create new documents in that time, but we can have kind of. Kayla and I have talked about having our pool of backup stuff that we're like, I don't know if they really need to see this, but we're gonna keep it in our kind of in our background folders in case we need to pull it up.

Katie White [: 00:27:22

Okay. So after the October to November when they're reviewing all of our documents, they'll come back and say what, like what's the outcome that NCQA is going to come to us with?

Carrie Oswald [: 00:27:34

They're going to come back and say, you're the best agency that we've ever seen.

Katie White [: 00:27:37

I love that.

Carrie Oswald [: 00:27:38

And accreditation.

Katie White [: 00:27:39

Always trying to be the best. Unlimited.

Carrie Oswald [: 00:27:42

All right, so we have an option to be. We will either be accredited for two or three years based on the outcome. You know, and honestly I would love three years, but two years would also be amazing. This is our first stab at this. Kayla and I feel really good and we feel confident in the work we're doing. But we also know when you're reading this stuff, every word has a meaning. And that's what we're discovering. That every time we go back and we read a standard, we're like, oh boy, I think maybe we missed something in this policy.

Carrie Oswald [: 00:28:11

So that's the piece that I think keeps us both up a little bit. Like we feel good. But then we also are a little bit like, ooh, you know, we don't know exactly what they're gonna say. Cause we haven't been this before.

Katie White [: 00:28:21

It reminds me a little bit of like a strategic planning process where like you're not sure when to just like close it off. Right. Like, well, I could ask one more question or I could say one more thing. It's like, okay, at some point you just have to be done and move on.

Carrie Oswald [: 00:28:33

Yeah.

Katie White [: 00:28:33

And especially knowing that they might come back and say, hey, Just show us a little bit more and you've already got it. That's awesome. Yeah. So what else do we need to know about this? We've defined it. You've talked about what it is, what we're doing here, what the overall process is. But what else about NCQA do you want people to.

Carrie Oswald [: 00:28:53

I think something that I'm excited for years in the future is what. What we choose to take from the passport and ALW accreditation and take to other programs here internally. There's a lot of things that I think Kayla and I have thought, oh, you know, this program would really benefit from this specific policy or procedure. So that's exciting to think about. We might not necessarily go for full accreditation in every program here, but we can can expand how we're doing that work and share it and become more NCQA like in all of the programs we're doing.

Katie White [: 00:29:27

So we're going through the accreditation process for passport and assisted living waiver. We may or may not go for accreditation in our other programs, but what we can do is apply those best practices and have that confidence that we are doing it on other programs even if we don't go the full process. Okay, got it. Yeah.

Kayla Humphrey [: 00:29:48

And I think for me, I think something that is interesting and good for folks to know is that we're talking about our consumers and the care that we provide. But part of this, too, is taking a step back and saying, going as far back as what training do you provide your new case managers to make sure that folks that we are sending to our consumers are. Are going at it with a culturally appropriate lens, are going into consumers homes asking questions about if they feel safe in their home. I mean, really taking a deeper look, I think, at not just our consumers, but our staff, so that everybody feels more competent, everyone feels more confident in the work they're doing and feels good about the fact that, like, they're providing quality care, because that's what we've gone through all this for.

Katie White [: 00:30:44

Yeah, that's really interesting when I think about our staff and the fact that this accreditation also benefits them as a licensed professional.

Carrie Oswald [: 00:30:58

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Katie White [: 00:30:59

And so while we have case managers that come and work for a few years and leave now we know, and we've. We've thought this anecdotally, but now we'll know they're leaving an even better clinician for Aging and Disability Services in central Ohio's network. That's major. That's major. And I think as we grow as an agency, we are seeing that we're getting some New grads and they're coming in and we're investing so much in that training and sometimes we get a little sad when people leave, which is okay, it's natural. But I love knowing that, that somebody can come here, be trained, learn how to be an excellent clinician, and then out in the world they're bringing that with them. That's excellent.

Kayla Humphrey [: 00:31:44

1,000%.

Katie White [: 00:31:45

Yeah.

Carrie Oswald [: 00:31:45

And that ties to the Workplace Empowerment Academy, which also lives with Kayla and I. And they come together so well together. And it really is that mission of serving our consumers by serving the folks who work here.

Katie White [: 00:31:57

So wia, or the Workplace Empowerment Academy is the new name for COAA University. Okay, so there was a previous podcast on Coaa University. Now it's called wia. Do you want before we close out, just give another little overview of what WIA is and then how it ties to NCQA. Sure.

Kayla Humphrey [: 00:32:14

I think I would kind of describe WEA as our internal staff development program. Really the purpose of WIA was really created to make sure that staff understood and felt supported and work life balance, basically that, but that they were going to come to coaa. And we recognize that your workplace can absolutely tie into your health and well being. And so Kerry really had started WIA and has built an incredible foundation. And really, once I joined Keri, what we really just started to look at was the Surgeon General's report to say, okay, these things are important. We know that the data says these are important for folks to be happy in their workplace. So let's react, reiterate that. And so WEA is where folks can come together for anywhere from an hour to two, depending on the session, where they really don't, they don't have to learn those things that they've already learned in school or anything like that.

Kayla Humphrey [: 00:33:17

This is really more focusing on when you go out and you see consumers and things are difficult, what do you do? And really trying to give them the skills and the confidence to not only know their job here at coaa, but to go out and to do it well and feel good about that work.

Carrie Oswald [: 00:33:37

Yeah, it's really twofold. It's that piece about we want you to be able to have the skills so that when you go home, you can turn it off and you can be restful at home and have that balance. But also when you're here, what does it mean to be a COAA case manager? What does it mean to be out there? Because we all have experience, we're coming from all these different places and it might mean something different everywhere you are But. But WIA helps to instill what it means to be a COAAA person, a COAA case manager. And we just. We love that. And it's all about empowering them and saying, hey, you're an excellent clinician. We know that because we hired you.

Carrie Oswald [: 00:34:12

Like, that's why we wanted you to come work here. So let's all talk about what that means together and share ideas and focus on a specific topic. Those topics may just happen to align with NCQA standards, and folks tend to really get a lot out of it. We receive of positive feedback. It also is bringing people from all programs together. So now you might know the person who you're seeing in the hallway that you wouldn't have otherwise necessarily interacted with. So important I always tell folks in WEA is that, you know, you are in a great place to network in this world because you have 400 people who are excellent at doing their job. And this is a place to meet people so that you can make your next step.

Carrie Oswald [: 00:34:56

And we always say, we hope your next step is here, but you are with the future leaders in this network.

Katie White [: 00:35:02

Definitely. I love that. It's not just about us and who we serve. It's about the network in general. Even if we're not serving them directly, we still have an impact in what's going on in the region. Yeah, great.

Carrie Oswald [: 00:35:15

We're jazzed, as you can tell.

Katie White [: 00:35:16

I love it. Me too. And I'm also jazzed that I don't have to think about it because the details and the coordination are making my brain spin a little bit. But that's why we have great team members. So you guys can do it. Thank you so much for your work. Any last words for NCQA?

Carrie Oswald [: 00:35:34

Just big, big thanks to everybody. All of the clinical teams, our NCQA work group. Super. Everybody who's been involved. This is not. Kayla and I are kind of steering the ship here, but this is. We can't do this at all without everybody pitching in.

Kayla Humphrey [: 00:35:50

Yeah. And yeah, the passport team has been amazing. The assessment team has been amazing. Shout out to Su, who keeps us from spinning in circles some days. Like, they have all been incredible to work with and have done. Have been honestly, really welcoming of our changes and asking questions. And yeah, huge, huge, huge, huge shout out to all of them.

Katie White [: 00:36:13

Great. And to you both as well. I hope now you know a little bit more about the National Committee for Quality Assurance.