IBC and Health Dialog Team Up to Help Primary Care Doctors Improve Care
Independence Blue Cross (IBC) announced that it is collaborating with Health Dialog, a leading provider of health care analytics and decision support, on a new pilot program that will offer health coaching to people with chronic illnesses to help them stay well and out of the hospital.
Johns Hopkins Collaborates with Lockheed Martin to Build Next-Generation ICU
The Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality of Johns Hopkins Medicine is collaborating with the Lockheed Martin Corporation to create a safer and more efficient hospital intensive care unit (ICU) model. The two organizations will work to streamline complex and fragmented clinical systems and processes to reduce medical errors and improve the quality of care for critically ill patients.
Provider-Friendly Terminology Speaks the Language of Quality and Safety
Medical Terminology Management
Provider-Friendly Terminology Speaks the Language of Quality and Safety
As a practicing physician, my peers often ask me what I do in the technology arena. When I reply, “standardization or medical terminology management,” I’ve usually lost them. And at its core, the goal of standardization really is not to complicate matters for physicians and other clinicians. Provider-friendly terminology (PFT) is an example of the kind of standardization our industry needs.
Health IT & Quality
Health IT & Quality
It’s All About Jobs
What would Steve do? Steve Jobs, the 20th century’s greatest and most successful innovator, engrained that mantra into the heads of every Apple employee. Only those staff members who thought through problems the way Jobs did would offer solutions that were acceptable to their boss.
Another Look at Aviation as a Healthcare Model
By William A. Hyman
It has been popular to compare aviation’s safety record and procedures to similar processes in healthcare, usually with the notion that healthcare lags aviation in adopting a firm safety-oriented methodology (Carr, 2006; Pronovost et al., 2009; AHA, 2011). There can be considerable challenges when making such cross-discipline comparisons including staffing, training, mission scope, and perhaps personal risk.
Rhode Island Quality Institute (RIQI) First to Create and Launch Statewide Direct Adoption Program
Providence, Rhode Island, September, 8, 2011—The Rhode Island Quality Institute (RIQI), a not-for-profit organization dedicated to improving the quality, safety and value of healthcare in Rhode Island, announced the launch of its statewide Direct Adoption Program.
Paper on Automation in Surgery Wins 2011 Human Factors Prize for Excellence in HF/E Research
The Human Factors and Ergonomics Society congratulates Dietrich Manzey, Maria Luz, Stefan Mueller, Andreas Dietz, Juergen Meixensberger, and Gero Strauss on receiving the 2011 Human Factors Prize for their article, “Automation in Surgery: The Impact of Navigated-Control Assistance on Performance, Workload, Situation Awareness, and Acquisition of Surgical Skills.”
AED Failures Connected to Deaths from Cardiac Arrest
Aug. 30, 2011—A study published online last week in Annals of Emergency Medicine reports that more than 1,000 cardiac arrest deaths over 15 years were connected to the failure of automated external defibrillators (AEDs); battery failure accounted for almost one-quarter of the failures.
New Treatment Model Targets Improved Patient Outcomes at Free Clinic
Aug. 19, 2011—The Jeanie Schmidt Free Clinic in Herndon, Virginia, has received a CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield grant to expand its Shared Medical Appointment program, a treatment model designed to increase clinic capacity, maximize staff and volunteer efficiency, and empower patients to engage in their own health care outcomes.
American College of Surgeons Announces Goal to Enlist 1,000 Hospitals to its National Surgical Quality Improvement Program
CHICAGO (July 18, 2011) – The American College of Surgeons (ACS) today announced its goal to enlist at least 1,000 hospitals into its respected National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP®). The commitment is part of the ACS Inspiring Quality initiative launched today, an effort to raise awareness of proven models of quality improvement, coordinated care and disease management that can help improve the quality and value of health care.