Homecare—the provision of personal, often sophisticated, medical care in the home—has been promoted as an attractive alternative to a lengthy hospitalization for patients. Homecare is further advanced as providing patients greater independence and more control over their care and as financially preferable to in-patient hospitalization.

ABQAURP’s 38th Annual Health Care Quality and Patient Safety Conference, Friday, April 17, 2015, Royal Sonesta Houston – Houston, TX

Management guru H. James Harrington wrote, “Measurement is the first step that leads to control and eventually to improvement. If you can’t measure something, you can’t understand it. If you can’t understand it, you can’t control it. If you can’t control it, you can’t improve it.” 

Last July, Phil Gingrey, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia and a physician, expressed frustration over our lack of interoperability in our clinical systems

Long-term and post-acute care (LTPAC) and assisted living organizations face unique challenges in delivering high-quality care and positive resident outcomes in today’s healthcare environment. For example, LTPACs work against tight budgets to provide ongoing care to residents with a wide range of disease states and perform complex medication management for residents. 

Have you ever been tempted to answer a question even though you were not sure of the answer? Perhaps the fear of looking stupid was so overwhelming that any answer was thought to be better than no answer. Under pressure, we may “shoot from the hip,” forming an answer to a question in seconds and not taking time to weigh options or consider the question. 

Yelp. TripAdvisor. Angie’s List. Healthgrades. No individual or organization maintains immunity from scrutiny by their customers. Reviews can be uplifting and embarrassing, and they surely capture the attention of both the reviewer and the reviewed.

Dr. Lucian Leape is a leader among those who urge clinicians and organizations to talk openly about their mistakes, disclose harm done to patients, and apologize promptly and sincerely. Those activities come immediately to mind when the term “transparency” is used in patient safety.

The American Board of Magnetic Resonance Safety (ABMRS) is built around the central principal that professionals trained in MR safety represent the single greatest opportunity to reduce accidents and injuries in the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) environment.

Communities often develop verbal short cuts for concepts that bind them together. In patient safety, “transparency” serves as shorthand for a broad range of activities and programs, including disclosure of errors, patient- and family-friendly access to medical records…