Process Improvement

A California hospital group has launched a website offering a quality report card on more than 200 hospitals across the state. The site, which is published by the California Hospital Assessment and Reporting Task Force (CHART) and the California HealthCare Foundation, rates hospitals on 50 performance indicators. These include not only risk-adjusted clinical measures of performance on such conditions as heart disease, maternity and …

According to some estimates, it would take $50 billion to fund healthcare needs in developing countries. To close this gap, one international health organization proposes that developing countries get the chance to cancel portions of their debt if they spend on approved health projects. Backers say the Debt2Health plan is a "win-win"--cutting the risk creditors face while giving needy countries more money to deal with health crises. Indonesia, Pakistan, Peru and Kenya will become the …

According to a new study, efforts to improve the quality of care for diabetes, asthma and hypertension have improved processes of care for these conditions. However, this was not found to improve intermediate clinical outcomes. The study was designed to improve healthcare for urban and rural low-income patients receiving care in community health centers.

As a result of the effort, there was a 21 percent increase in foot examinations for patients with diabetes, a 14 percent increase …

While state governments are doing what they can to promote all kinds of health IT initiatives, none are more popular than e-prescribing. And when it comes to e-prescribing, it seems no state has gotten more of a jump on the matter than Massachusetts, which just won an e-prescribing leadership award handed out by some national community pharmacy groups. The Safe-Rx award, which is given out by the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, the National Community Pharmacists Association and …

U.S. healthcare quality isn't what it should be, and probably won't be for at least three to five years. That's the depressing--or arguably, challenging--conclusion emerging from a new study by consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers. To conduct its study, PwC surveyed 60 of what it termed the nation's most influential healthcare leaders, who seem to agree that healthcare quality improvement efforts have lost their its momentum, despite high-profile successes efforts like the Institute for …

Pittsburgh's Allegheny General Hospital has kicked off a new program inviting engineering students into the operating room and teaches them how to use biomedical technology. The idea behind the course, which involves students at the city's Carnegie Mellon University, is to prepare them to develop the next wave of surgical technology. The course has proven popular, with enrollment leaping from 12 students to 44 over the first three semesters it was offered. Working with surgeons, the …

Kaiser Permanente announced yesterday that it was awarding $7 million to a group of California's public hospitals and clinic, with funding aimed at helping these "safety net" providers offer better preventive care. The $7 million was broken down into a total of 57 smaller grants, awarded through Kaiser's Health Information Technology Initiative. About $5 million of the funds will help the hospitals and clinics stay up to date with preventive technology such as automation for mammogram …

While it hasn't always been the case in the past, it appears that a patient-oriented case management program has been demonstrated to show some concrete benefits this time around. According to a new study published in The American Journal of Managed Care, a case management program focused on late-stage, largely cancer-diagnosed patients was able to cut emergency visits 30 percent, hospital admissions 38 percent and cut costs by more than $18,000 per patient. The study, which …

While most patients think doctors care about them and treat them well, many are quite annoyed by some of the administrative issues they face when visiting their primary care provider, according to a new survey conducted by the Consumer Reports National Research Center. The CRNRC polled 39,000 patients and 335 primary care doctors to find out what relationships between PCPs and patients were like these days. What they found was that while most patients felt doctors were providing good …

This week, a team of Mayo Clinic chest surgeons released a list of pre-op and post-op quality indicators for lung surgery. The quality guidelines, if effective, should have a significant impact on the clinical world, as lung cancer is more common than colon, breast and prostate cancers combined, notes study leader and Mayo chest surgeon Stephen Cassivi.

To develop their quality indicator list, the team analyzed records from 606 lung-surgery patients, aged 2 to 93. What did they …