HCPro.com: Quality Improvement Report

This informative newsletter is a 12-page monthly resource that provides you with the hands-on advice, tools (including data collection forms), and best practices that you need to ensure your hospital scores high on its quality measures and receives all of the Medicare reimbursement it deserves!

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May 2007 (Volume 2, Issue 5)	view entire issue

Pennsylvania pioneers mandatory near-miss reporting for hospitals
Near-miss reporting provides rich information that could potentially reduce adverse events, yet only one state in the country, Pennsylvania, requires it. And even though most hospitals encourage staff to alert them to close calls, many clinicians are loath to do so for fear of reprisal. "I still think there's a reluctance, because they're saying, 'Well, nothing bad happened, so why do we need to report them?' " says Karen Griffin, RN, MSN, CNAA, a director of the American Academy of Ambulatory Care Nursing. There are plenty of reasons to report near-misses, according to the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority.

AHRQ tools aim to get patients involved in their care
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has developed two new tools to reach out to one of the top untapped resources in medical care-the patients. The first is an ad campaign, "Questions Are the Answer: Get More Involved With Your Health Care," which was launched during National Patient Safety Awareness Week in March. The campaign was done in conjunction with the Ad Council. The Council enlisted the help of the ad agency McCann Erickson Detroit, which did the work pro bono.

Order sets, checklists help hospital in P4P success
It's called pay for performance (P4P), but the incentive program has less to do with financial gain than providing excellent patient care, according to one participant in the CMS/Premier Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration (HQID) project. "We never approached it with the pay-for-performance mindset," says Pam Pringle, RN, director of clinical practice at Fairview Northland Medical Center in Princeton, MN. "We knew that the goal of CMS was to be able to reward organizations that met particular measures. But we always approached it from the best-practice, evidence-based perspective. We wanted to do what was best for the patient," she says.

Other recently-published articles from Quality Improvement Report:

Facilities making progress on infection control?related Patient Safety Goal

Be prepared for early warning system goal

Pandemic influenza risk remains high for hospitals

Gaining stakeholder support for SBAR technique

National Patient Safety Goals: The PI connection

WalkRounds involve senior leaders with frontline staff

Use FMEA to examine the causes of heparin overdoses

Three keys to readying your anticoagulant program

Diabetic patients with many comorbidities need higher levels of insulin

Antibiotic monitoring improves quality, reduces cost

SCIP expert: OR environment can lead to infections

Timeouts need to include the entire surgical team

Q&A with Peter Angood on Universal Protocol

Assess all patients to prevent pressure ulcers

Hourly rounding, huddles help prevent patient falls

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