OCTOBER 4, 2002 –Director Noelle A. Clark announced today that the Michigan Department of Consumer & Industry Services will receive a prestigious national award for its innovative Quality Improvement Nurse Consultant program, which is aimed at enhancing the quality of life and care for residents of nursing homes and long term care facilities.

The Association of Health Facility Survey Agencies (AHFSA) will present a Best Practice 2002 Award on

Oct. 21 during its annual convention in Williamsburg, Virginia to the CIS Bureau of Health Systems Quality Improvement Nurse Consultant program. Receiving the award will be nurse consultants: Deborah Ayers of Detroit, Wendy Ehnis of DeWitt, and Cynthia Irwin of Ann Arbor.

The CIS Quality Improvement Nurse Consultation Program, which was established in 2000, is an unique program among state agencies across the nation and is available free of charge and on a voluntary basis to all long term care facilities in Michigan. The Quality Improvement Nurse Consultants, all of whom possess a master’s degree (M.S.N.) in nursing, provide consultation, education and program development guidance for long term care providers to assist them in creating an internal continuous quality improvement process to provide the highest level of care possible.

“We are so very excited that our Quality Improvement Nurse Consultant Program will be recognized as a model for other states to follow in nursing home and long term care regulation,” Clark said. “This program was created to help the state’s long term care providers improve the quality of life and care for our most vulnerable residents. We’ve known that Michigan is a leader in nursing home and long term care oversight, but it is satisfying to receive national recognition from our peers and to have one of our key programs spotlighted as the standard for other states to follow.” 

AHFSA's Best Practice Program, now in its 5th year, gathers information from states about their approaches to issues and problems that are industry-wide concerns and selects a few unique, innovative and outstanding programs for public recognition of the progress being made today by state survey and certification agencies. The   AHFSA's goal is to promote communication among all state agencies; enable them to exchange models of outstanding services, processes or practices; and to publicly recognize the efforts of those agencies.

Read more Michigan Department of Consumer & Industry Services press releases.