Although President Obama’s first State of the Union address focused heavily on the economy and jobs, it is clear that health care reform remains a priority. As the President calls on Congress to continue the work of health care reform, The Joint Commission continues to believe that eliminating the preventable complications that today harm millions of patients would provide sufficient funds to extend health insurance to all Americans.
In fact, health reform is an integral component of the economic recovery. Avoidable injuries from medications, preventable infections, surgical complications that should not occur, and problems resulting from poor communication among health care providers cost hundreds of billions of dollars each year. Add in the consequences of the inappropriate use of health services—such as antibiotics for colds—and the possible savings are staggering.
As President Barack Obama and Congress determine an approach to reforming the health care system, it is important not to lose sight of quality improvement as one of the most urgently needed health reforms. The key to transforming our health care system into one in which patients are confident in the safety of the care they receive is to incorporate proven quality improvement methods that other industries use to achieve much higher levels of safety.
The health care system has been slow to adopt these proven approaches to measurable, successful results. Addressing the capacity of health care organizations to deliver robust process improvement is the only way to keep up with the ever-changing, moving target of quality and safety. Until this capacity in put in place throughout the health care system, investment should be made in ways to harness available expertise to create scalable and specified solutions that organizations of all sizes and complexity can easily adopt to combat the most serious patient safety issues. This will give health care providers tools essential to delivering cost-effective care, eliminating preventable complications and achieving significant reductions in health care-acquired infections, re-hospitalizations and unnecessary tests.
The Joint Commission urges investment in this infrastructure that will allow health care to achieve a level of high reliability and bring the best possible care to all patients. Without such a commitment, health care reform will not meet public expectations or achieve significant cost savings.