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How to present quality info that will engage the board of directors

Quality Improvement Monitor, November 16, 2007

If you want to really engage your board of directors, focus on two or three high-risk measures, strip your data of denominators whenever possible, and put a human face to the information you're presenting.

So says James Reinertsen, MD, senior fellow for the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) and the president of The Reinertsen Group in Alta, WY.

"The board asks two questions, when [it does] ask questions about safety and quality," Reinertsen says. "One is 'How do we compare to others?' "

The other question that boards ask, and should be encouraged to ask more frequently, is "Are we getting better?"

The comparison query, he says, should be addressed annually. "If I'm a quality director, I would urge boards to ask that comparison question once a year when they're taking stock, but not at every board meeting because it's time-consuming and wasteful to present that information at every board meeting," Reinertsen says. "It also has a terrible time lag built into it. [The data are] usually four to six to eight months old when the board sees [them]." By contrast, the question "Are we getting better?" should be addressed at every board meeting.

Access the full story in the November issue of Quality Improvement Report; access is free for subscribers, nonsubscribers can purchase a copy of the story for $10.

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