HealthCare Benchmarks and Quality Improvement articles from April 2006

HealthCare Benchmarks and Quality Improvement archives from April 2006

'Hospitals of excellence' outshine others in mortality, complications: 'quality chasm' continues to grow, says latest HealthGrades report.
April 1, 2006... When it comes to quality improvement, it seems that the best keep getting better, based on the findings of the latest Hospital Quality and Clinical Excellence study from Golden, CO-based HealthGrades, Inc. This is the organization's fourth...

Experts: time to prepare for next flu season: CDC, JCAHO issue vaccination guidelines.
April 1, 2006... At this writing, the 2005/2006 flu season is not quite over--and yet, say the experts, it's not too early to start planning for next year's season. In fact, the National Influenza Vaccine Summit has advised health care providers they may want...

New tool unveiled as patient safety option: tool investigates defects in patient care.
April 1, 2006... A team of quality and safety researchers at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore, MD, has developed a tool to investigate defects in patient care called the Learning From Defects (LFD) tool. The tool, described in detail in an...

All MA hospitals agree to make staff plans public: move is part of effort to put "Patients First".
April 1, 2006... In a move billed as a nationwide first, all hospitals in Massachusetts now will be voluntarily posting their staffing plans through a new web site--www.patientsfirstma.org--as well as through notices in hospitals. This will give consumers the...

QI can help tackle post-bypass infections: women have greater likelihood of death.
April 1, 2006... A study published in the "Archives of Internal Medicine reveals a new opportunity for quality managers to have an impact in an area where disease/complications may be preventable and/or treatable: bypass surgery. The study, conducted by...

Collaborative cuts ICU infection rate in half: rapid cycle changes, checklists were used.
April 1, 2006... A 50% decrease in central-line infections and an increase in compliance with evidence-based practices from 30% to 95%. These are the dramatic results achieved by 10 hospitals participating in the two-year Greater Cincinnati Patient Safety ICU...

Study: quality, patient safety improving at a modest pace: greatest gain seen in patient safety measures.
April 1, 2006... The quality of U.S. health care continued to improve in 2005, according to The 2005 National Healthcare Quality Report" from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). Overall quality...

CDC issues updated TB prevention guidelines.
April 1, 2006... The Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued updated guidelines for preventing the transmission of tuberculosis in health care settings. The report, "Guidelines for Preventing the Transmission of Mycobacterium...

Health care disparities narrow for many.
April 1, 2006... The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has just released its National Healthcare Disparities Report," which indicates that health care disparities are narrowing overall for many minority Americans. But for Hispanics, the report...