The Quality letter for healthcare leaders最新文献

Seeking new ways to improve standardization of clinical operations and customer focus, Louisville, KY-based Humana, Inc. announced in November that it has become the first healthcare company to be registered in the U.S. under ISO 9001:2000, a quality management standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

A report card from Last Acts and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation takes a first look on a state-by-state basis at how end-of-life care and related issues are approached by healthcare organizations across the country.

Over the years, many types of healthcare report cards have emerged to give consumers comparative quality information right at their fingertips. One organization, though, Licking Memorial Health Systems of Newark, OH, has created a report card over the past 3 years to tell the community how it is doing--keeping in mind healthcare issues that affect every member of the community. Getting these data at the hospital level required a new approach at the departmental levels.

When the Institute of Medicine's Committee on Quality of Health Care in America released its second report, Crossing the Quality Chasm, last year, criticism was leveled at the "toxic reimbursement system" that failed to reward efforts to achieve quality care. However, times are changing, and this issue of The Quality Letter looks at new ways incentive programs are being implemented and fine-tuned at the hospital, health plan, and medical practice level to promote the delivery of quality healthcare.

The federal government--as both a regulator and the largest healthcare purchaser in the country--should take advantage of its "influential position" to promote quality standards and patient safety for the entire healthcare sector, according to a report released this fall by the Institute of Medicine's Committee on Enhancing Federal Healthcare Quality Programs.

For nearly 4 years, the Pittsburgh Regional Healthcare Initiative (PRHI) has been working to improve the way healthcare is delivered in southwestern Pennsylvania by combining the voices and resources of hospitals, providers, the business community, insurers, health plans, and federal agencies. As one example of borrowing from business, the PRHI has created a new learning and management system, called Perfecting Patient Care, which is based on the Toyota Production System model and is now being used successfully in hospitals.

While consumers still see cost as a top concern in receiving healthcare services, clinical quality is rapidly replacing service quality as the next most important issue, according to focus group findings in a new VHA report: "Consumers Look at Clinical Quality: Beyond Bricks and Mortar."

Of the 5 million patients who will be admitted to intensive care units (ICUs) this year, about 10% will die and many will incur preventable adverse events. However, lessons learned through recent initiatives across the country--emphasizing teamwork, leadership, technology, data, outcomes, and best practices--could spell great changes ahead for all ICUs. These initiatives range from the simple and inexpensive (such as healthcare professionals washing their hands after patient encounters or elevating the heads of patients using mechanical ventilators) to the use of electronic monitoring. But all require commitments--by everyone from the people working day-to-day in the ICU to those in charge of healthcare facilities--to make those changes and provide quality care.

The issue of nursing shortages, of course, is not new. But, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations notes in a newly released white paper that the problem is not likely to improve any time soon unless radical changes are implemented at the cultural, workplace, educational, and leadership levels.