HealthCare Benchmarks and Quality Improvement articles from July 2002

HealthCare Benchmarks and Quality Improvement archives from July 2002

Appreciative inquiry: a radically different approach to change: `positive thinking' brought to identifying, solving problems.
July 1, 2002... Key Points * Appreciative Inquiry, or AI, seeks to identify what went right and duplicate the experience. * Adjustment in thinking may be difficult for defensive-minded health care professionals. * Likelihood of success appears...

Inquiry process can help build leaders.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Intense dialogue and inquiry in small groups can do more than help solve pressing health care problems; they can help mold the profession's future leaders. At M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Duke Rohe, FHIMSS, performance...

Benchmark results spur action in hospital ED; staff address `left without being seen' issues.(emergency department)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Key Points * Benchmarking stresses the importance of rate, not absolute numbers. * Facility goes from dead last to first in just a few quarters. * Sustaining change is much more difficult than achieving change. Sometimes...

Want to innovate? Look outside of health care: health system models top companies nationwide.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Key Points * Innovation center will teach employees to be more creative, differentiate facility. * Other companies are more than willing to meet and share their experiences. * Innovation seems to be a red-hot topic in every...

MedMARx report may aid in error prevention; focus should be placed on potential errors.
July 1, 2002... Key Points * Sentinel events represent only the tip of the iceberg in uncovering errors. * Use targeted reporting in areas where errors are likely to occur. * A high number of reported errors does not necessarily mean low quality....

In e-communications, walk before you run; e-mail triage gives way to web-based program.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Key Points * Since cultures vary across clinical groups, customization is a must. * Addressing concerns of physicians and patients makes e-mail more palatable. * Web site offers greater privacy, improves documentation process. ...

Administration nursing home data flawed.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... The Bush administration's recently released data on the quality of care at more than 2,500 U.S. nursing homes is flawed, according to Robert Bornstein, a psychology professor at Gettysburg (PA) College. "It is flawed in two respects,"...

Cedars-Sinai joins the IHI network.(Institute for Healthcare Improvement)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Los Angeles-based Cedars-Sinai Medical Center has become one of 56 charter members of a new multinational network, created by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) in Boston, to improve health care quality. The network, known as...

Poor supervision can contribute to a higher rate of errors: when focusing on systems, don't forget human factor.
July 1, 2002... The current focus on systems when exploring the cause of medical errors overlooks one important fact: People still are interacting with those systems. "There are two things you have to remember," says Anthony F. Grasha, PhD, professor of...

Injury prevention model broadens safety scope; create situations where human error can't happen.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Traditional approaches to patient safety that focus exclusively on errors may be missing significant opportunities for improvement, argues a group of researchers from the Injury Research Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee....