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The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is developing a survey instrument to measure how effectively hospitals address patients' health literacy needs.
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The greater amount of top leadership involvement in a root cause analysis (RCA), the greater the likelihood of significant patient safety improvements. Senior leaders don't need to be appointed to RCA teams but some level of leadership oversight and intervention is important throughout the life of the investigation.
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Better teamwork. It sounds like a simple strategy, but this goal has proved surprisingly elusive for many health care organizations.
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The general public already can find out what percentile your organization scored in when it comes to quality measures for conditions such as acute myocardial infarction or pneumonia.
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Patients are being put at risk because important health care information is communicated in medical jargon that exceeds their literary skills, according to a new white paper from The Joint Commission.
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This year, the Leapfrog Hospital Quality and Safety Survey will include the types of questions asked by other national initiatives such as The Joint Commission, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid, and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement's 100,000 Lives campaign, says to the Washington, DC-based organization.
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When it comes to quality assurance in the customer service arena, those patient satisfaction surveys that have become ubiquitous in health care may not be providing accurate feedback, suggests Michael Friedberg, FACHE, CHAM, a manager with Besler Consulting in Princeton, NJ.
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Quality improvement professionals have long known of the difficulties involved in discharge communications between hospital-based physicians and primary care physicians, but in the words of one observer, "This is the first time the problem has been quantified."
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Who hasn't had a significant surgeon leave your facility for greener pastures? What about that staff member whom you spend so much time with, who you develop into a world-class employee who seemed to master every task, only to see him or her lured or driven away to a competitor?
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An insurance company has been ordered to reimburse a father for his teenage son's gynecomastia surgery after it had refused on the grounds that it was a cosmetic procedure.