HealthCare Benchmarks and Quality Improvement articles from January 2003

HealthCare Benchmarks and Quality Improvement archives from January 2003

After years of waiting, health care finally has a Baldrige winner! `Quality journey' at SSM Health Care has taken years, hard work.
January 1, 2003... Key Points * SSM Health Care was not an "overnight success;" quality journey has taken many years. * Health care faced unique challenges in competing with industry. * Baldrige standards helped SSM crystallize mission, goals. ...

Quality focus shining on corporate ethics: 2003 questions from Baldrige reveal focus.
January 1, 2003... Key Points * Compliance just scratches the surface of a comprehensive ethics policy. * Being true to your mission is a critical component of governance responsibilities. * Quality managers play an important role in feedback,...

Successful practices benchmarked at CHA: members encouraged to learn from each other.(Catholic Health Association)
January 1, 2003... [Editor's note: This is the third in a three-part series on the Catholic Health Association of the United States' (CHA) performance improvement program, "Living Our Promises, Acting on Faith." The previous article described how the baseline...

U.S. end-of-life care gets a (barely) passing grade: survey shows there is much more work to be done.
January 1, 2003... Key Points * The vast majority of Americans would prefer to die at home. * A minority of hospitals offer hospice or palliative care services. * Report card enables state-to-state comparisons, benchmarking. America received a...

Med school teaches bioterror response: AAMC cites program as a model.(Association of American Medical Colleges)
January 1, 2003... Key Points * Subtle, natural course changes are seen as most effective. * Students are trained to respond to "all events," not just specific attacks. * Efforts are under way to enable benchmarking by other institutions. The...

Construction brings opportunity to boost patient safety: safety-oriented planning should precede building process.
January 1, 2003... Health care facility construction, whether a new building or an expansion of an existing medical center, can present a number of challenges, not the least of which is maintaining quality of care and patient safety if the work involves adding on...

Test interventions for improving safety.
January 1, 2003... Spurred by the Institute of Medicine report and a strong ongoing concern for patient safety, the University of Michigan Health System (UMHS) in Ann Arbor has instituted a far-reaching program called the Patient Safety Enhancement Program...