Ask any healthcare executive to name the biggest issue that will demand their attention in 2022, and the response will be staffing shortages and their impact on patient safety. Those focused on improving care quality might consider how key trends will play out and the impact of current industry challenges on their healthcare ecosystem.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services defines a transition of care as the movement of a patient from one setting of care to another. Settings of care may include hospitals, ambulatory primary care practices, ambulatory specialty care practices, long-term care facilities, home health, and rehabilitation facilities. To improve these transitions, our health care system needs strong interdisciplinary care teams to collaborate and establish processes that improve transitions at each level of care within the health care continuum. 

Chartered Quality Institute recently celebrated World Quality Week, which focuses on the quality management profession, concentrating on quality’s role in better sustainability as well as its environmental, social, and governance impact. In a healthcare landscape that is growing ever more complex, quality’s impact on sustainability and how the industry reacts and responds to changing regulations is more important than ever.

Engaging with patients early in the study design process allows sponsors to better understand what would make a trial work best for patients, their caregivers, and their families. To get to that point, patient groups can help sponsors to identify barriers up front such as travel distance, length of study visits, and financial costs to patients to determine what aspects of the trial could be better designed to reduce patient burden.

Each year in the United States alone, an estimated 4.8 million hospital patients suffer serious harm through preventable causes. This alarming statistic is the driving factor behind Press Ganey’s Safety 2025 Initiative, which challenges the healthcare industry to achieve an 80% reduction in patient harm by 2025. Accomplishing this feat will take a systemic rethinking of the approach to addressing medical malpractice.