“Quality Leaders Day” Launches CAPH/SNI Performance Improvement Program

On May 21, CAPH/SNI hosted a Quality Leaders Day to kick-off its Performance Improvement Program. Bringing together directors of quality and performance improvement from CAPH-member hospitals, the meeting provided a forum to share challenges and strategies to address escalating requirements to measure and publicly report quality data. Thanks to Dianna Daly of UC Irvine Medical Center, CAPH-member quality leaders can receive a $500 discount off each individual registration fee for the Summit on Hospital Public Reporting Conference on June 21-22 in Chicago. To register using this discount, contact Chris Torres; 646-723-8039 and mention that you are a CAPH member.

New Law Requires Reporting of Adverse Events

A new law effective July 1, 2007 requires hospitals to report adverse events to the Licensing and Certification Division of the Department of Health Services (DHS). DHS must investigate events within 48 hours of a complaint that indicates an ongoing threat of imminent danger of death or serious bodily harm. To read the full text of this code, see Section 1279. The State of Minnesota passed a similar law several years ago, but unlike California’s law, it included provisions to share the investigative root cause analysis under a peer review protected umbrella. Minnesota’s public report can be found here.

On May 10, 2007, public hospital system leaders toured the KP Garfield Center for Healthcare Innovation. The Garfield Center is a fascinating laboratory for developing innovative architectural, technological and/or workflow solutions for health care, from nursing stations to operating rooms to outpatient clinic floor plans.  Through its partnership with CAPH/SNI, Kaiser Permanente (KP) plans to make the Garfield Center available to CAPH members who are building or remodeling facilities, or who wish to test better ways of delivering care to maximize safety and satisfaction. Ideas emerged for ways public hospitals might use the Center:

• Demonstrate and simulate promising practices related to nurse handoffs, Rapid Response Teams, medication administration, or use of remote technologies to communicate with patients in facilities and at home;
• Test radical redesign of any part of public hospital systems, such as primary care
• Architectural design, prototyping, and how to streamline OSHPD approval processes

Contact: Wendy Jameson.

Article Finds Professional Interpreters Linked to Better Clinical Outcomes

Four physician researchers, including Dr. Alice Chen from San Francisco General Hospital and Dr. Sunita Mutha and Dr. Leah Karliner from UCSF who collaborate with SNI on its LEAD program, recently published an article concluding that professional healthcare interpreters has a positive impact on clinical care (see full article). The authors reviewed published research and found overall positive impact of professional interpreters—as opposed to ad hoc interpreters (such as family, friends, or untrained clerical staff)—on communication (errors and comprehension), utilization, clinical outcomes and satisfaction with care. The article, published in Health Services Research, also concluded that the use of professional interpreters raises the standard of care received by Limited English Proficient patients to near or equal that of patients without a language barrier.

Addressing Disparities Requires Coalition-Building & Creativity

Report Documenting African American Health Disparities in Solano County Sparks Action
With the highest concentration of African Americans (14.5%) in the state, and a report from 2004 documenting health disparities among this population, Solano County’s Coalition for Better Health developed a strategic plan to address African American health disparities that it recently presented to the County Board of Supervisors. In the Coalition’s 2004 report, African Americans in Solano County were found: “twice as likely to die from diabetes; three times as likely to die from prostate cancer as other men; twice as likely to die from stroke and to have twice the infant mortality rate.” The Solano County African American Disparities Elimination Project grew out of the Coalition and has devised a strategic plan. Their plan includes, “promoting personal behavior to improve health and wellness, increasing the role of family and community in promoting better health, improving the quality of care of African Americans and increasing public and private policies encouraging better health.” Click here to read the full article.

Health Advocate Role for African American Barbers
Health advocacy organizations in Cleveland and Atlanta have trained African American barbers to deliver health messages to their black male clients, a hard-to-reach population. Since barbers already discuss personal topics such as health with their clients, the Greater Cleveland Health and Service Council’s executive director thought that this would be a great way to address health disparities. The Council trains barbers to discuss fitness and diet changes and conducts biannual health screenings at 10 black-owned barbershops. Henry Jenkins, a 64-year old barbershop devotee, exclaimed that he could have been dead if it weren’t for the nurse on-site at the barbershop that diagnosed him with diabetes and severely high blood pressure. Click here to read the article.