Public hospital systems are engines for health care innovation, vigorously engaged in hundreds of efforts to improve health care delivery using demonstrated models that have proven effective in improving patient safety and making care more efficient and clinically sound. Driving this work is the belief that every person deserves high quality care. And better access to such care will reduce health disparities and lead to more cost-efficient and effective use of limited public dollars.
SNI embraces the use of data on quality to drive improvement. With our affiliate organization, the California Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems (CAPH), we launched the Quality First Initiative in 2007. With this focus on ensuring that public hospitals have the resources needed to collect and report accurately on quality, and use those data to improve quality, we’ve seen impressive results. In fact, California public hospitals are meeting or exceeding national standards on most core measures reported to CMS, and have steadily improved in the few areas where they are not yet at the national average.
The goals of the Quality First Initiative are to:
- Enable our members to collect and report quality data efficiently and accurately;
- Provide resources, information and training to help ensure that our members are within the top 10% of all hospitals on key quality measures;
- Inform key stakeholders and the public about the high quality care provided by public hospitals in California; and
- Help shape policies at the state and federal level that are intended to reduce health disparities in safety net institutions by improving quality and promoting patient safety.
SNI’s programs that fallunder the Quality First Initiative include its Lean Core Measures Initiative and the Hospital Performance Improvement Initiative. Please also see the CAPH Issues Brief on Providing High Quality Care With a Commitment to Improvement.