News

Major announcements and news related to program, state, or policy changes

Telligen Takes On RQITA
October 16th, 2023

Telligen Takes On RQITA


HRSA has recently awarded RQITA to Telligen, Inc, a 100-percent employee-owned population health company based in West Des Moines, Iowa. We have over 50 years of quality improvement experience and provide unique services to meet the needs of our clients and ensure success. 

We will provide various resources and services, including but not limited to:
  • A new Telligen RQITA website
  • Up-to-date resources, guides and tools
  • 1:1 technical assistance
  • Office hours
  • Learning & action webinar events
We will also continue to provide a monthly newsletter to keep you up-to-date and share industry news.

In This Issue:

The Telligen RQITA Team

Susan Buchanan
Susan Buchanan, MPH, is a Director at Telligen with 30 years of experience in quality improvement, health IT, and value-based payment models.  She has led Telligen’s role in many rural-focused federal programs including the Frontier Community Health Integration Project; Quality Payment Program Small, Underserved, Rural Support program; Transforming Clinical Practice Initiative and Regional Health IT Extension Center. These programs provide technical assistance with performance measurement and improvement interventions.

She lives in Iowa and shares a fun fact that her family owns a “century farm” that has been operational for over 100 years.

Meg Nugent
Meg Nugent, MHA, RN is a Director at Telligen with over 30 years of experience in the healthcare industry. She is the current Program Manager for Telligen’s Hospital Quality Improvement Contract (HQIC) with CMS serving 192 small, rural, critical access, and safety net hospitals across 15 states and territories. She has also overseen prior Hospital Engagement Network (HEN) and Hospital Improvement Innovation Network (HIIN) contracts as well as the Transforming Clinical Practice Initiative (TCPI) contract, leading hospitals and clinicians from multiple states around the country in quality measurement, performance improvement, and value-based care delivery model improvement efforts. 

Her hobbies include traveling and spending time on the beach.

Alaina Brothersen
Alaina Brothersen, MPH, has been working in healthcare quality improvement for nine years. She has provided technical assistance for hospital settings and rural nursing home settings across the country through quality improvement projects in evaluative roles.

With a background in public health and program evaluation she has performed measure development, quality improvement intervention development, technical assistance, and evaluations for numerous federal quality programs.

Her hobbies include hiking, gardening and reading.
 

Ann Loges
Ann Loges, RN, BSN is a Senior Quality Improvement Facilitator at Telligen with 31 years of nursing experience. Her major accomplishments include leadership in multi-hospital improvement initiatives, EHR implementation responsibilities, and hospital strategic planning with ties to point of care goals.

Ann has experience in the full spectrum of quality data; from patient level chart abstraction, data reporting, and use of data measures to drive improvement. This includes practicing as a Quality Director in a critical assess hospital to offering direct technical assistance to multiple hospitals and collaborating with state and federal partners.

Her hobbies include golf and cards.

Courtnay Ryan


Courtnay Ryan is a Sr. Quality Improvement Facilitator at Telligen with over 20 years of experience in the healthcare industry. She currently splits her time at Telligen supporting long-term care facilities with quality measure reporting and teaching quality improvement methodologies, while the other half supporting our Learning and Action Network (LAN ) QIN-QIO strategy for events and technical assistance. 

Her work has spanned across many areas within the healthcare industry, including being a certified nursing assistant, administrative duties including ED admissions/discharges, billing/coding and serving as a Quality Improvement Specialist for the Colorado State Office of Rural Health for 6 years.


Courtnay is a small town country girl and former professional barrel racer.

Telligen's Rural Experience
We have worked alongside partners on various state and federal initiatives and are experienced in providing rural quality improvement technical assistance for the following initiatives:
  • Hospital Quality Improvement Contractor (HQIC)
  • Frontier Community Health Integration Program (FCHIP)
  • Quality Innovation Network Quality Improvement Organization (QIN-QIO)
  • Quality Payment Program Small Underserved Rural Support (QPP SURS)
  • Medicare Beneficiary Quality Improvement Program, (MBQIP)
  • American Indian Alaska Native Healthcare Quality Initiative (AIANHQI)
We are here to help you! If you have any questions about this transition, please send an email by clicking the button below.
Email the Telligen RQITA Team
This publication is supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of an award totaling $640,000 with 0% financed with non-governmental sources. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official view of, nor an endorsement, by HRSA, HHS or the U.S. Government. For more information, please visit HRSA.gov. (September 2023)

Copyright © 2023 Telligen, All rights reserved.

Texas Wins the 2021 MBQIP Spirit Award!
July 30th, 2021

Rural Resilience for Healthier Communities

On July 30th, 2021, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller announced that the Texas Department of Agriculture’s (TDA) State Office of Rural Health has won national recognition for its effort to expand and improve delivery of first class health care in rural Texas during the 2021 Flex Program Virtual Reverse Site Visit conference. The Texas Flex Program, a program managed by the State Office of Rural Health to support and improve Critical Access Hospitals in rural areas, was awarded the 2021 Medicare Beneficiary Quality Improvement (MBQIP) Spirit Award by the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy.

“This award is not just recognition for the job we’re doing here in the TDA State Office of Rural Health,” said Miller, “but for the tremendous job done by all the healthcare professionals at rural hospitals across the Lone Star State. The recent COVID-19 pandemic packed a wallop for rural hospitals, but this award shows that we’ve come out stronger and better, because that’s what Texans do. We don’t just survive, we thrive. I could not be more proud.”

Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller

The goal of the MBQIP Spirit Award is to recognize state programs that strive to be innovative, improve and advance the objectives of the federal project in their state. According to Natalia Vargas, Federal MBQIP Officer for Texas, the Spirit Award “underscores the incredible efforts, hard work, innovative thinking to problem solve, and the drive to truly make healthcare better for rural populations.”

Flex Coordinator Robert Shaw

Flex coordinator Robert Shaw from the State Office of Rural Health stated, "Texas is a big'ol state, and I am proud to say that we all work together— from our quality partners at the CAHs, Texas Hospital Association, and Texas A&M Rural and Community Health Institute, along with our Federal partners, to move our state forward in our quality journey. Everyone has a role to play in improving quality!"

The Medicare Beneficiary Quality Improvement Project (MBQIP) is a quality improvement activity under the Medicare Rural Hospital Flexibility (Flex) program of the Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) Federal Office of Rural Health Policy (FORHP). The goal of MBQIP is to improve the quality of care provided in critical access hospitals (CAHs), by increasing quality data reporting by CAHs and then driving quality improvement activities based on the data.

Dedicated to serving the health needs of rural Texas, the TDA State Office of Rural Health (SORH) works with local health care providers and other partners to support access to quality health care for rural Texans. SORH works to support rural health providers by providing technical assistance with finance, operations, and quality through a variety of grant programs, workshops, and one-on-one assistance. Additional resources include educational awards that are available to individual clinicians and health care institutions, information and referral, funding resources, and assistance with medical license applications.