Letter From the President   BACK		Letter From the President South Dakota Foundation for Medical Care is an organization of physicians dedicated to encouraging the health care community to adopt proven best practices of care to ensure that the highest quality medical care is provided to South Dakotans. The Foundation has been conducting its work for over three decades and is the premier health care quality improvement organization in our state. I have been a member of the Foundation for many years and am proud to serve as its president. The most important role of the Foundation is acting as the Quality Improvement Organization (QIO) for South Dakota under a contract with the Medicare program. Medicare relies upon the QIOs in each state to promote best practices in health care and review concerns from Medicare beneficiaries about the care they receive. The Foundation, as the QIO, also conducts medical review on a sample of Medicare hospital admissions to verify that services are medically necessary, delivered at the most appropriate, cost-effective level and of a quality that meets professionally recognized standards of care. QIOs operate under very strict federal guidelines and are responsible for achieving very ambitious, quantifiable objectives set by Medicare for each three-year contract cycle. I’m pleased to report that the Foundation has a long history of success in meeting these goals and is considered one of the best performing QIOs in the nation. The Foundation has been successful because of the collaborative assistance of the medical community in South Dakota. We routinely provide consulting services to hospitals, nursing homes, home health agencies and clinics in best practices, performance measurement reporting, and data collection. Together, all of us work hard to assure that our citizens receive the highest quality of care possible. Douglas Traub, M.D. President Click here for a Text Only Version of the site © 2008 South Dakota Foundation for Medical Care, All Rights Reserved