Healthcare Benchmarks and Quality Improvement Archives – May 1, 2011
May 1, 2011
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'Spread' remains challenge in patient safety improvement
This March, the industry once again celebrated National Patient Safety Awareness Week an apropos title as quality professionals have certainly become increasingly aware of the importance of patient safety in recent years. But how well have we done? -
Study: Palliative care cuts hospitalization costs
A study published recently in Health Affairs shows that hospitalization costs for patients with certain terminal or serious chronic illnesses are significantly lower when palliative care is provided. -
Tech helps facility slash HAIs by 22%
Princeton Baptist Medical Center in Birmingham, AL, was recently chosen as one of two national HIMSS/ASQ Stories of Success for the 22% reduction in healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) resulting from their adoption of a radio frequency identification (RFID)-based hand-hygiene monitoring system. -
Posted wait times an added advantage?
Given that patients are keenly interested in wait times, an increasing number of EDs across the country are taking advantage of new media to make this information more accessible to the public. -
Guidelines offer models for improving quality
Hospital ethics boards now can refer to national guidelines when developing procedural standards and processes for evaluating quality of ethics consultations (EC) and institutional EC processes. -
Learn the key items in new guidelines
The revised "Core Competencies for Health Care Ethics Consultation," by the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH) contains new sections and tables addressing procedural standards and quality assessment. -
Patient safety and metrics: Obtain good data
Risk managers are collecting data and using metrics in many ways lately, and patient safety should be a primary focus, says David G. Danielson, JD, CPA, senior vice president of clinical risk management at Sanford Health in Sioux Falls, SD. -
AHRQ releases results of safety culture survey
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture 2011 User Comparative Database Report has released results based on data from 472,397 respondents in 1,032 hospitals.