Improving Healthcare Quality in Europe Characteristics, Effectiveness and Implementation of Different Strategies


Book Description

This volume, developed by the Observatory together with OECD, provides an overall conceptual framework for understanding and applying strategies aimed at improving quality of care. Crucially, it summarizes available evidence on different quality strategies and provides recommendations for their implementation. This book is intended to help policy-makers to understand concepts of quality and to support them to evaluate single strategies and combinations of strategies.




Crossing the Quality Chasm


Book Description

Second in a series of publications from the Institute of Medicine's Quality of Health Care in America project Today's health care providers have more research findings and more technology available to them than ever before. Yet recent reports have raised serious doubts about the quality of health care in America. Crossing the Quality Chasm makes an urgent call for fundamental change to close the quality gap. This book recommends a sweeping redesign of the American health care system and provides overarching principles for specific direction for policymakers, health care leaders, clinicians, regulators, purchasers, and others. In this comprehensive volume the committee offers: A set of performance expectations for the 21st century health care system. A set of 10 new rules to guide patient-clinician relationships. A suggested organizing framework to better align the incentives inherent in payment and accountability with improvements in quality. Key steps to promote evidence-based practice and strengthen clinical information systems. Analyzing health care organizations as complex systems, Crossing the Quality Chasm also documents the causes of the quality gap, identifies current practices that impede quality care, and explores how systems approaches can be used to implement change.




Improving Quality of Care in Low- and Middle-Income Countries


Book Description

Quality of care is a priority for U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The agency's missions abroad and their host country partners work in quality improvement, but a lack of evidence about the best ways to facilitate such improvements has constrained their informed selection of interventions. Six different methods - accreditation, COPE, improvement collaborative, standards-based management and recognitions (SBM-R), supervision, and clinical in-service training - currently make up the majority of this investment for USAID missions. As their already substantial investment in quality grows, there is demand for more scientific evidence on how to reliably improve quality of care in poor countries. USAID missions, and many other organizations spending on quality improvement, would welcome more information about how different strategies work to improve quality, when and where certain tools are most effective, and the best ways to measure success and shortcomings. To gain a better understanding of the evidence supporting different quality improvement tools and clarity on how they would help advance the global quality improvement agenda, the Institute of Medicine convened a 2-day workshop in January 2015. The workshop's goal was to illuminate these different methods, discussing their pros and cons. This workshop summary is a description of the presentations and discussions.




The Improvement Guide


Book Description

This new edition of this bestselling guide offers an integrated approach to process improvement that delivers quick and substantial results in quality and productivity in diverse settings. The authors explore their Model for Improvement that worked with international improvement efforts at multinational companies as well as in different industries such as healthcare and public agencies. This edition includes new information that shows how to accelerate improvement by spreading changes across multiple sites. The book presents a practical tool kit of ideas, examples, and applications.




Achieving STEEEP Health Care


Book Description

Winner of a 2014 Shingo Research and Professional Publication Award! Reaching America’s true potential to deliver and receive exceptional health care will require not only an immense and concerted effort, but a fundamental change of perspective from medical providers, government officials, industry leaders, and patients alike. The Institute of Medicine set forth six primary "aims" to which every participant in the American healthcare system must contribute: health care must be safe, timely, effective, efficient, equitable, and patient-centered. Presented as the acronym STEEEP, the collective realization of these goals is to reduce the burden of illness, injury, and disability in our nation. Baylor Health Care System is committed to doing its part and has adopted these six aims as its own. Achieving STEEEP Health Care tells the story of Baylor Health Care System’s continuing quality journey, offering practical strategies and lessons in the areas of people, culture, and processes that have contributed to dramatic improvements in patient and operational outcomes. This book also discusses newer approaches to accountable care that strive to simultaneously improve the patient experience of care, improve population health, and reduce per capita costs of health care. Provides the perspectives of senior leaders in the areas of corporate governance, finance, and physician and nurse leadership Supplies strategies for developing and supporting a culture of quality, including systems and tools for data collection, performance measurement and reporting Includes service-line examples of successful quality improvement initiatives from reducing heart failure readmissions to coordinating cancer care Outlines approaches to accountable care and improved population health and well-being




Achieving Quality Improvement


Book Description

Achieving Quality Improvement follows a quality management consultant "in action" through visits to four client companies that request advice. The consultant begins by discussing quality improvement in the context of Total Quality Management (TQM), then visits a chemical manufacturing company, a food and drink can company, a water company, and an engineering company to discuss aspects of quality improvement related to process capability, customer requirements, and precision of test methods.




Preparing for Continuous Quality Improvement for Healthcare


Book Description

This book provides a set of detailed instructions to help you construct your departmental, divisional, or organizational functional tree structure (FTS) and work towards world-class service. Preparing for Continuous Quality Improvement for Healthcare: Sustainability through Functional Tree Structures outlines a method that will enable your organiza




Patient Safety and Quality


Book Description

"Nurses play a vital role in improving the safety and quality of patient car -- not only in the hospital or ambulatory treatment facility, but also of community-based care and the care performed by family members. Nurses need know what proven techniques and interventions they can use to enhance patient outcomes. To address this need, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), with additional funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, has prepared this comprehensive, 1,400-page, handbook for nurses on patient safety and quality -- Patient Safety and Quality: An Evidence-Based Handbook for Nurses. (AHRQ Publication No. 08-0043)." - online AHRQ blurb, http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/nurseshdbk/




Improving the Quality of Health Care for Mental and Substance-Use Conditions


Book Description

Each year, more than 33 million Americans receive health care for mental or substance-use conditions, or both. Together, mental and substance-use illnesses are the leading cause of death and disability for women, the highest for men ages 15-44, and the second highest for all men. Effective treatments exist, but services are frequently fragmented and, as with general health care, there are barriers that prevent many from receiving these treatments as designed or at all. The consequences of this are seriousâ€"for these individuals and their families; their employers and the workforce; for the nation's economy; as well as the education, welfare, and justice systems. Improving the Quality of Health Care for Mental and Substance-Use Conditions examines the distinctive characteristics of health care for mental and substance-use conditions, including payment, benefit coverage, and regulatory issues, as well as health care organization and delivery issues. This new volume in the Quality Chasm series puts forth an agenda for improving the quality of this care based on this analysis. Patients and their families, primary health care providers, specialty mental health and substance-use treatment providers, health care organizations, health plans, purchasers of group health care, and all involved in health care for mental and substanceâ€"use conditions will benefit from this guide to achieving better care.




The Quality Improvement Challenge


Book Description

Efforts to improve the quality of healthcare have failed to achieve a meaningful and sustainable improvement. Patients continue to experience fragmented, inconvenient, and unsafe care while providers are increasingly becoming overburdened with administrative tasks. The need for change is clear. Healthcare professionals need to take on new leadership roles in quality improvement (QI) projects to effect real change. The Quality Improvement Challenge in Healthcare equips readers with the skills and knowledge required to develop and implement successful operational improvement initiatives. Designed for healthcare providers seeking to apply QI in practice, this valuable resource delivers step-by-step guidance on improvement methodology, team dynamics, and organizational change management in the context of real-world healthcare environments. The text integrates the principles and practices of Lean Six Sigma, human-centered design, and neurosciences to present a field-tested framework. Detailed yet accessible chapters cover topics including identifying and prioritizing the problem, developing improvement ideas, defining the scope of the project, organizing the QI team, implementing and sustaining the improvement, and much more. Clearly explaining each step of the improvement process, this practical guide: Presents the material in a logical sequence, gradually introducing each step of the process with clearly defined workflow templates Features a wealth of examples demonstrating QI application, and case studies emphasizing key concepts to highlight successful and unsuccessful improvement initiatives Includes end-of-chapter exercises and review questions for assessing and reinforcing comprehension Offers practical tips and advice on communicating effectively, leading a team meeting, conducting a tollgate review, and motivating people to change Leading QI projects requires a specific set of skills not taught in medical school. The Quality Improvement Challenge in Healthcare bridges this gap for experienced and trainee healthcare providers, and serves as an important reference for residency program directors, physician educators, healthcare leaders, and health-related professional organizations.