HealthCare Benchmarks and Quality Improvement articles from October 2007

HealthCare Benchmarks and Quality Improvement archives from October 2007

Award winner involves entire staff in quality improvement initiatives: hospital culture changes following leadership crisis.
October 1, 2007... Quality managers know that it's hard enough to get nurses and physicians to buy in to their initiatives, but at Columbus (IN) Regional Hospital, even non-clinical staff members are expected to make quality improvement one of their primary...

Aortic dissection patients may have new hope: new way to predict post-hospital death risk.
October 1, 2007... Survivors of aortic dissection may improve their odds of long-term survival with more aggressive follow-up care and more targeted discharge instructions, based on the findings of a new study in the New England Journal of Medicine. (1) An...

Premier launches new hospital QI collaborative; focus closely on creating a 'template' for reliability.
October 1, 2007... Following closely on the heels of its successful Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration (HQID) project with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Premier Inc. is launching Quest (quality, efficiency, and safety, with transparency), a...

Collaboration accelerates safety improvements; open communications help drive success.
October 1, 2007... The Indianapolis Coalition for Patient Safety (ICPS), established in 2003, has made significant strides in a number of areas through collaborative initiatives, say its leaders. Among its successes to date are: * The reduction of...

Palliative care program stresses teamwork; uses hospitalists trained in palliative care.
October 1, 2007... What makes an award-winning palliative care program? In the case of the program at the University of California at San Francisco, it's the combination of a collaborative approach to individualized patient care; extensive use of hospitalists;...

Q10 developing outpatient quality measures.
October 1, 2007... Under a new contract with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the Oklahoma Foundation for Medical Quality (OFMQ) will collaborate with The Joint Commission to develop the first national standardized quality measures to assess...

Health leaders name quality 'favorites'.
October 1, 2007... Health information technology, public reporting of quality measures, and financial incentives to improve care are among the strategies favored by health leaders to improve health care quality and safety, according to a new survey by the...

The Joint Commission names new president.(Joint Commission appoints Mark Chassin)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... The Joint Commission has appointed Mark Chassin, MD, its next president. The appointment will be effective Jan. 1, 2008, when Dennis O'Leary will become president emeritus. Chassin is an executive vice president at Mount Sinai Medical Center in...

This year's 'Most Wired' take balanced approach.(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... A "balanced scorecard" approach has replaced the dominant role of financial assessments in evaluating information technology (IT) plans among the nation's "100 Most Wired Hospitals and Health Systems," identified by the 9th annual survey and...

Cultural understanding yields patient safety dividends: communication and cultural sensitivity can be lifesavers.
October 1, 2007... "Hmong" maybe hard to pronounce, but it s likely that, nearly every staffer at St. John s Hospital in Maplewood, MN, knows that and much more about this unique population from Somalia. That's because the HealthEast System, of which St. John's...