All facilities participating in Network QIAs are required to participate in national Learning & Action Networks (LANs) to support QIA activities. LANs provide a forum for bringing together healthcare professionals, patients, and other stakeholders around an evidence-based agenda to achieve rapid, wide-scale improvement.

Staff members at facilities participating in QIAs will be asked to participate in ESRD National Coordinating Center (NCC) LAN webinars associated with the QIA their facility is working on.  The Network may also select additional facilities that may benefit from an identified LAN topic. Patients and their family/caregivers will also be asked to participate in an effort to advance the work of the QIA.

The ESRD NCC LAN will support facilities in more efficiently achieving the goals of the QIAs and sustaining the improvements, by:

• Creating a diverse forum (patients, organizations, and stakeholders) for addressing problematic issues
• Using measurable and clear goals with proven effective practices to drive decision making
• Setting the pace and tone for goal related activities and to create an open sharing of practice and data

Initiating change methodology which rapidly tests small quality improvement changes specific to the area of work