Share Your Stories of Real-World Success on Patient Safety and Quality Outcomes
HIMSS and co-sponsor, American Society for Quality, introduce Stories of Success! case study program to share quality and patient safety improvement success stories.
Chicago, IL, October 6, 2009—Emphasizing the link between improvements in healthcare quality and patient safety and health IT, HIMSS is seeking real-world success stories to be peer-reviewed for consideration as a case study in the Stories of Success! Leveraging HIT, Improving Quality & Safety program. ASQ is co-sponsoring the project; the National Quality Forum and The Joint Commission have a representative serving on the case study review group. http://www.jointcommission.org/.
A newly developed program, Stories of Success! showcases outstanding accomplishments in the adoption and use of information technology to achieve improved patient safety, quality, effectiveness and efficiency. The call for case studies uses the national priorities established by the National Priorities Partnership (NPP) and The Joint Commission’s National Patient Safety Goals (NPSG).
“We want those who are using IT every day to help us identify how technology helps support the six priorities of National Priorities Partnership and The Joint Commission’s national patient safety goals and priorities. These from-the-field examples, focused on national quality and performance improvement, will pinpoint technology’s positive impact on the lives of patients,” said Louis H. Diamond, MD, chair of the HIMSS NPP/JC (National Priorities Partnership/The Joint Commission) Work Group that is leading this project. Dr. Diamond, also chair of the HIMSS Patient Safety & Quality Outcomes Steering Committee, is Vice President and Medical Director for Thomson Reuters Healthcare.
National Priorities Partnership Goals
Convened by the National Quality Forum in 2008, the National Priorities Partnership’s goals are designed to transform the nation’s healthcare system ensuring all Americans have access to safe and affordable healthcare. The six national priorities include:
- Patient and family engagement
- Population health
- Safety
- Care coordination
- Palliative and end-of-life Care
- Overuse
Hospital National Patient Safety Goals
The purpose of The Joint Commission’s National Patient Safety goals is to focus on nine problematic areas in healthcare and describe evidence and expert-based solutions to these problems.
- Identify patients correctly
- Improve staff communication
- Use medicines safely
- Prevent infection
- Check patient medicines
- Prevent patients from falling
- Help patients to be involved in their care
- Identify patient safety risks
- Prevent errors in surgery
“Case studies of real-world success which identify and detail tools and methodologies used, positive outcomes, challenges overcome, and returns on investment in patient safety, population health management, and care coordination have proven to be invaluable tools for those embarking on a continuous improvement journey,” said Joseph Fortuna, MD, chair-elect of the Health Care Division of ASQ and CEO of PRISM, a nonprofit corporation seeking to sustainably improve quality and operations of health care practices.
A template developed by the work group allows online submission of the case studies at http://www.himss.org/storiesofsuccess, due by Nov. 16. Selected by peer review, the case studies will be posted on the HIMSS Web site and categorized by the goals met from the National Priorities Partnership or The Joint Commission. Additional educational opportunities with the case studies include a series of quarterly podcasts and a session at HIMSS10.
“With the provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act now underway, the information gathered in these case studies will focus on health IT as a valuable healthcare tool for quality and patient safety improvement,” said David A. Collins, MHA, CPHIMS, FHIMSS, who is HIMSS director, healthcare information systems. “By sharing notable quality improvement scenarios, we hope these best practice examples will help deter unnecessary practices in healthcare delivery and demonstrate the benefits of health IT adoption.”
About ASQ
ASQ, (The American Society for Quality) www.asq.org, has been the world’s leading authority on quality for more than 60 years. With more than 85,000 individual and organizational members, the professional association advances learning, quality improvement and knowledge exchange to improve business results and to create better workplaces and communities worldwide. As a champion of the quality movement, ASQ offers technologies, concepts, tools and training to quality professionals, quality practitioners and everyday consumers. ASQ has been the sole administrator of the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award since 1991. Headquartered in Milwaukee, Wis., ASQ is a founding sponsor of the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), a prominent quarterly economic indicator, and also produces the Quarterly Quality Report.
About HIMSS
The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) is a comprehensive healthcare-stakeholder membership organization exclusively focused on providing global leadership for the optimal use of information technology (IT) and management systems for the betterment of healthcare. Founded in 1961 with offices in Chicago, Washington D.C., Brussels, Singapore, and other locations across the United States, HIMSS represents more than 23,000 individual members, of which 73% work in patient care delivery settings. HIMSS also includes over 380 corporate members and nearly 30 not-for-profit organizations that share our mission of transforming healthcare through the effective use of information technology and management systems. HIMSS frames and leads healthcare public policy and industry practices through its educational, professional development, and advocacy initiatives designed to promote information and management systems’ contributions to ensuring quality patient care.