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In this SNI Bulletin:
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Public Hospital Clinics Cited
at NCQA Awards as “Among
the Best American Medicine Has to Offer”
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Quality: SNI
Surveying Members on Performance Measurement
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Quality:
California’s
Own Hospital Report Card Released
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Quality: System Improvement
Requires Performance Data
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CAPH & SNI
Board Member Ken Cohen featured in Leaders Advance
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San
Francisco General Hospital: Template for Change
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LEAD Program Featured on Public TV End-of-Life Program
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CHCF Publishes Findings and Recommendations on Quality
of Palliative Care for California’s Diverse Population
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Call
for Grant Proposals to Reduce Health Disparities for Diverse Populations
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Seminar
on Improving the Handoff to Mitigate Patient Harm
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Free IHI
Improvement Training
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Public Hospital Clinics Cited at NCQA Awards as “Among
the Best American Medicine Has to Offer” |
On
Mar. 15, Edward H. Wagner, M.D., M.P.H., the
father of the Chronic Care Model, accepted
the 2007 National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) Quality Award. At the awards ceremony, Dr. Wagner—who met with the CAPH
board in January to kick off SNI’s SEED (Spreading
Effective and Efficient Diabetes Care) program—praised the chronic care progress
made by safety net providers. Dr. Wagner told the audience that public hospital clinics
are “among the best that American medicine has to offer.”
Dr. Wagner referred to
efforts to improve primary care, saying “to reach the majority of patients, we will
need integrated programs of performance measurement, infrastructure (IT) development, quality
improvement, and payment reform.” We couldn’t have described CAPH’s
and SNI’s quality goals any better! Click here for more information
about the award. Click here for the complete text of his speech.
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Quality: SNI
Surveying Members On Performance Measurement |
SNI is laying
the groundwork for a new SNI initiative to assist members in navigating the the
increasingly important work of
quality measurement, public reporting and pay for performance. We
have engaged consultant Cathy Wada, and are pleased to bring her decades
of experience working in a leadership capacity across many
health care sectors to this work. SNI will be sending
out a short Web-based survey to CAPH member hospital quality
officers so that we can find commonalities and target areas
where working together will benefit all member hospitals. Contact: cwada@caph.org.
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Quality:
California’s
Own Hospital Report Card Released |
The
long awaited California hospital
report card is now available at www.CalHospitalCompare.org with six CAPH member public hospital systems
participating. CalHospitalCompare is the result of
a two-year collaboration by the California Hospital Assessment and Reporting Taskforce (CHART)
and the California HealthCare Foundation (CHCF). All of
the measures used to rate hospitals on the site are already available to the public through
the Joint Commission, CMS, Leapfrog, and OSHPD. The range of reported
information will grow with the next version of the report card later in 2007.
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Quality:
System Improvement Requires Performance Data |
SNI is pleased to share two recent news articles,
both highlighting how collecting performance data and
using it in management can dramatically improve quality and outcomes:
The New York Times describes the
improvement in a Northern
California hospital’s care for heart attack patients, once managers actually began
to look at the amount of time patients were waiting for heart catheterization. This
article was shared with SNI by our Patient Visit Redesign consultants Coleman Associates,
and is reprinted on their Web
site.
The second article, from the Stanford
Social Innovation Review, illustrates this theme, through the example of the city of Baltimore’s CitiStats program. City officials combined
measurement and data sharing to set goals of increased accountability across city departments,
from police, to health department restaurant reviewers, to the lead poison abatement program. Generating $43 million in cost
savings citywide,
the changes resulted in reduced
crime, increased drug treatment access,
and even 90% of potholes being fixed within
48 hours. That’s progress. SNI thanks SSIR for permission to reproduce the article
(click here to read).
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CAPH & SNI
Board Member Ken Cohen featured in Leaders Advance |
CAPH and SNI Board member Kenneth B. Cohen, CEO of San Joaquin General Hospital was featured in the
February Leaders Advance newsletter, published by UCSF Center for Health Professions. As a participant in the LEAD program,
Cohen imparted the importance of organization-wide cultural
and linguistic competence efforts. He led his team in developing the Health Care Interpreter Network, which improves cultural and linguistic competence through technology. When asked what recommendations
he would give other leaders about undertaking organizational change, he stated, “Leadership
must emphasize the importance of teamwork within their organization and establish teamwork
as a critical organizational value.” Click here to read
the full length article.
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San
Francisco General Hospital: Template for Change |
The LEAD program held the third and final learning session for the
2nd cohort in December 2006. At this session, participants displayed multimedia presentations
and storyboards to visually describe their LEAD projects and the progress made. San Francisco
General Hospital's project focused on improving self-care management for African Americans with diabetes. Their storyboard presentation is
posted on UCSF's The Network
for Multicultural Change's Web site.
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LEAD Program Featured on Public
TV End-of-Life Program |
Shoshana
Helman, M.D., of Santa Clara Valley Medical Center’s palliative care program, was a guest
on the KQED-TV program, "FAQ,” which examined end-of-life issues in its most recent
episode.
The program episode, “End of Life,” included
an interview with Dr. Helman and Steve Pantilat, M.D., director of the Palliative Care Service
at UC-San Francisco Medical Center. It featured the work of the LEAD team from
SCVMC that developed a culturally sensitive end-of-life program for the hospital.
Click
here to view the program, which was funded by the California HealthCare Foundation.
For more information on LEAD, please contact Wendy Jameson,
(510) 874-7105.
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CHCF
Publishes Findings and Recommendations on Quality of Palliative Care for California’s
Diverse Population
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The
California HealthCare Foundation released a new report examining how racial, ethnic, and
cultural factors affect the causes and patterns of death for Californians and the palliative
care they receive. Researchers found that a wide range of cultural and socio-economic factors
not only contributed to cause of death, but various preferences for end-of-life (EOL) care
as well. For instance, a disproportionate number of young Latino, Native American, and African
American Californians die from sudden deaths due to accidents and assaults, often times in
the emergency room. However, less than half of California hospitals offer palliative care
service or bereavement counseling in the emergency room. To view the article in its entirety click
here or visit the CHCF Web site.
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Call
for Grant Proposals to Reduce Health Disparities for Diverse Populations |
Finding
Answers: Disparities Research for Change, a program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation,
is currently accepting grant proposals for projects to evaluate initiatives that potentially
reduce racial and ethnic health care disparities in the treatment of cardiovascular disease,
depression, and asthma. Grant awards will range between $100,000 and $275,000 for projects
of at least 24 months. The deadline for the receipt of the preliminary brief proposals is May
17. For additional information on this exciting opportunity, please visit the Finding
Answers Web site.
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Seminar on Improving the Handoff to Mitigate Patient Harm |
Do
you have the best handoff system at your hospital for all practioners to keep patients safe? "Transitions
in Care: Improving the Handoff to Mitigate Patient Harm" is a one-day seminar to be
held on June 18, offered by the UCSF Center for Health Professions. In this course
you'll learn best practices to improve handoffs and comply with the JCAHO handoff national
patient safety goal. Safety net provider scholarships are available, but are extremely limited
and on a first-come, first-served basis. For more information and to register, click
here.
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Free IHI Improvement Training |
The
California HealthCare Foundation (CHCF), through the California Improvement Network, is offering
an Institute for Healthcare Improvement training, “The Science of Improvement: Accelerating
Your Capacity to Change,” which focuses on analytic skills to support improvement.
The two-day course, taught by IHI Faculty Jerry Langley and Sandy Murray, will take place
Apr. 17-18 at the Hyatt Fisherman’s Wharf, in San
Francisco. Anyone leading or supporting improvement within their
organization should attend, and active engagement in improvement is a prerequisite.
The training is free for those working on improving
outpatient care, not including travel. Click
here for more information on the training and to register online. Please note that
there is a limit of two people from each organization. For more information, please
contact Diane Stewart at CHCF,
(510) 587-3175.
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