BQA Update - Office of Caregiver Quality

PDF Version of BQA 04-009 (PDF 23 KB)

Date: March 8, 2004 -- DDES-BQA 04-009

FROM: Otis Woods, Deputy Director

Via: Susan Schroeder, Director

The Bureau of Quality Assurance (BQA), Caregiver Regulation and Investigation Section (CRIS), has been renamed the Office of Caregiver Quality and will continue reporting to the BQA Director's Office. Susan Larsen, who had been assigned the CRIS Interim Chief duties, is the Director of the Office of Caregiver Quality (OCQ).

The functions of the Office of Caregiver Quality have not changed, with the singular focus to produce quality caregivers, including:

• Approving and monitoring Wisconsin nurse aide training programs (approximately 180 programs).
• Monitoring Wisconsin nurse aide testing services, delivered by the Department's contracted agency, Promissor, Inc. (approximately 18,500 nurse aide candidates tested during 2003).
• Monitoring Wisconsin Nurse Aide Registry services, the federally required list of nurse aides determined eligible to work in Wisconsin health care facilities (approximately 167,000 nurse aides listed on the Registry). These Registry services are also delivered by Promissor, Inc.
• Completing caregiver background checks for all BQA regulated-entity license holders, principle officers and non-client residents upon application, and at a minimum, every four years (over 5,000 BQA entities).
• Screening, investigating and substantiating findings of caregiver misconduct (abuse or neglect of a client or misappropriation of a client's property). Caregiver misconduct investigations are completed by investigative staff with the OCQ and the contracted private investigative agency, North Shore Investigation, Inc. (approximately 1,100 caregivers with substantiated findings listed on the Wisconsin Caregiver Misconduct Registry.)
• Approving and monitoring Wisconsin feeding assistant training programs.

Please direct any questions regarding these functions to:

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