Quality & Patient Safety
Widespread application of a limited set of standardized measures could reduce the burden of unnecessary measurement of health and health care, and align the incentives and actions of several organizations at multiple levels, according to a report recently released by the Institute…
SNAPSHOT Hospitals that strive for high reliability aim to drive out the possibility of error and reject incremental improvements. In 2006, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center became the first pediatric hospital to receive the American Hospital Association–…
Improving patient safety is a goal at every hospital and health system. In fact, hospital and system trustees have a fiduciary responsibility to ensure high-quality, safe patient care. First, the goals of improving quality and eliminating patient harm must be embedded into the…
The White House recently issued a five-year plan to fight antibiotic- resistant bacteria.
Reducing readmissions is an important way to improve quality and lower health care spending, and hospitals are making significant progress. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services reported that the national readmission rate (i.e., instances when patients return to the same or different…
Organizational leadership’s commitment to ensuring the safe use of health information technology is one of several actions proposed in a Joint Commission Sentinel Event Alert recently released to reduce patient harm caused by HIT-related events. After analyzing 3,375 sentinel events that…
U.S. health care access and quality are improving as demonstrated by a decrease in the rate of uninsured adults seen in the first half of 2014, according to a report recently released by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. However, the 2014 National Healthcare Quality and Disparities…
Boards have a keen interest in quality, and they are helping their hospitals and systems to implement a variety of improvement strategies. One particularly effective tactic is building successful partnerships with patients and families by including patient and family advisers. A new guide from the…
In a market flooded with new technologies and apps that aim to make physicians’ jobs easier and patients more engaged with their health care, there is still a need for human interaction, according to speakers at the recent Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society 2015 Annual Conference…
Snapshot Trustee's partnership with ECRI Institute continues with this overview of three breakthroughs in clinical technology that have the potential to improve, lengthen and save lives.