Driving forces including escalating healthcare costs, global economic competition, and various incentives provided by the federal government make consumer-directed healthcare (CDH) programs the newest and most promising approach to delivering higher quality and cost efficient healthcare.

PSQH recently talked with Jim Demetriades, CEO of SeeBeyond Technology Corporation, about efforts to create healthcare infrastructures that make patient medical records available across organizations, regions, and countries, both in the U.S. and internationally.

Wound, ostomy, and continence (WOC) nurses provide improved outcomes for patients needing WOC care management. They add value (improved quality, access, satisfaction, and reduced cost) by…

Even though it is summertime, we are in the midst of dramatic developments forÝimproving patient safety.

In June 2003, Stony Brook University Hospital, a 504-bed tertiary care facility on Long Island, New York, performed a review of door-to-PTCA (percutaneous transluminal angioplasty) times, which revealed…

The complexity of the Medicare Part D drug benefit can be grasped when one tries to navigate the hundreds of pages available on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Web site.

Atul Gawande, MD, MPH, is a surgeon and writer whose work focuses on understanding medical errors and improving the performance of physicians.

The application of proven aviation crew resource management (CRM) technology and training to the reduction of medical errors is a steadily emerging area of human factors.

Few issues command as much attention in the healthcare industry as patient safety. As healthcare professionals and hospital administrators know, nurses are key players in patient safety programs.

Targeting medication safety efforts to give first priority to averting the highest-risk errors allows hospitals to achieve the most rapid and significant impact on improving medication safety.