Ana Pujols McKee, MD, Executive Vice President, Chief Medical Officer, Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer, The Joint Commission, will participate in a panel discussion about social determinants of healthcare and systemic inequities of care in a virtual symposium convened by Modern Healthcare at 9 a.m. CT on Thursday, Aug. 11.
Joining her on the panel will be Ayesha Jaco, MAM, Executive Director, West Side United; and Karen Fiumara, PHARMD, BCPS, CPPS, Vice President, Risk and Safety, Department of Quality and Safety, Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. Bobby Mukkamala, the immediate past chair of the American Medical Association, will moderate the session.
The symposium — “Advancing Equity in Health Care for Better Health and Stronger Communities” — will focus on several topic areas:
- The importance of advancing health equity.
- The impact of social determinants of health on individuals and communities.
- Identifying appropriate short- and long-term solutions to chronic health conditions.
- Programs and strategies to improve community health while also creating inclusive and sustainable local economies.
- The role that healthcare organizations and leadership can and should play in creating solutions.
Learn more about the event.
Patients who are seriously ill often turn to, or are inappropriately admitted to, already overburdened emergency departments (EDs) for care that may be better addressed by palliative care services.
Hospice care falls under the umbrella of palliative care services. The difference is that patients qualify for hospice care when they have a life expectancy of six months or less, whereas palliative care can be provided at any stage of serious illness.
A new issue of Quick Safety – “Issue 66: Palliative care: Better care for seriously ill patients visiting the ED” – focuses on this topic and provides reasons to utilize palliative care and safety actions to consider.
Read Quick Safety.
A new Take 5 podcast series launched this week to celebrate the 2021 John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety and Quality Award recipients.
The Eisenberg Awards recognize major achievements to improve patient safety and health care quality. There are three recipients each year: for an individual; an organization impacting quality care at a national level; and an organization impacting quality care at a local level.
In the first episode of the 2021 series, Dr. Hardeep Singh, MD, MPH, was interviewed. He received the Eisenberg Award for his individual achievements in promoting patient safety and high-quality care.
Dr. Singh is a Professor of Medicine and Chief of the Health Policy, Quality & Informatics Program, Center for Innovations in Quality, Effectiveness and Safety (IQuESt) at Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center and Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Singh has made seminal contributions in patient safety research, including:
- The creation of several diagnostic safety tools and health information technology (IT) safety tools that are in use throughout the United States.
- Foundational research on defining and measuring diagnostic error.
- Development of national Veterans Affairs policy with accompanying tools and checklists for safely communicating test results to patients and providers.
His work has influenced initiatives and policy work from stakeholders including the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, National Quality Forum (NQF), The Joint Commission, National Academies, American Medical Association, American College of Physicians, ECRI Institute, Pew Research, the World Health Organization, and many others.
Future episodes will celebrate other Eisenberg Award recipients.
Listen to the podcast. [19:09]
A new report from the Healthcare Association of New York State’s (HANYS) Statewide Steering Committee on Quality Initiatives used multiple performance improvement methodologies to identify risks and opportunities in current structures, processes, and outcomes at New York hospitals amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The results were published in The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety.
In spring 2020, New York was at the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic. The crisis revealed healthcare inequities, differences in capacity to respond between small and large organizations, and an inability to continue routine care. As a critical part of emergency management, an after-action report is often developed to prepare for future pandemics.
The association’s committee, composed of hospital and health system quality, clinical and patient safety experts, performed a thorough, systematic root cause analysis. The group identified underlying system and process causes and contributing factors that resulted in an overwhelmed healthcare delivery system.
The report — “COVID-19 Lessons Learned in New York’s Hospitals” — explores what worked or didn’t in eight categories:
- Staffing
- Competency
- Education and training
- Communication
- Human factors
- Trusted information
- Environment
- Equipment
Recommendations for each category were provided for hospitals, health systems and providers, and for county, state, and federal policymakers.
“Despite the stresses of COVID-19, New York’s healthcare providers, government officials, healthcare associations and communities all rose to the occasion,” said Mark Jarrett, MD, MBA, MS, senior health advisor, Northwell Health, and chair of the HANYS Statewide Steering Committee on Quality Initiatives. “With humility, we reflect on our successes and continue to plan for the future. Every threat provides an opportunity to improve. This is the basis for performance improvement.”
Read the full report, which is open access on the Journal’s website.
This year, The Joint Commission will only publicly report the Perinatal Care (PC) severe complication rate for the ORYX® performance measure PC-06: Unexpected Complications in Term Newborns.
This decision follows the guidance from the measure steward, California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative (CMQCC), that encourages hospitals to focus reviews and quality improvement efforts on severe complication cases. Previously, public reporting for PC-06 included the overall, severe, and moderate complication rates.
California has already been focusing on severe rates, and this revision will allow other states to follow the same process. It also aligns with the new ePC-07: Severe Obstetric Complications measure, which was added in January 2022 as an optional measure.
Reporting will be done through Quality Check®, and hospitals will still have access to the overall, severe, and moderate complication rates on their Joint Commission Connect® extranet site for internal quality improvement and monitoring purposes.
Questions may be directed to the Performance Measurement Network Q&A Forum.
A Continuous Customer Engagement (CCE) webinar focused on performance improvement fundamentals for post-acute care settings is scheduled for July 27 from 9-10 a.m. PT / 10-11 a.m. MT / 11 a.m. to noon CT / noon to 1 p.m. ET.
The aim of the webinar is to provide an opportunity for accredited post-acute settings to learn about fundamental performance improvement principals and methodologies. The tools, resources, and examples described are intended to assist organizations with taking the next step forward in their continuous journey of quality improvement to provide consistent, high-quality care for patients.
During the webinar, The Joint Commission will present fundamental performance improvement concepts and answer questions during a live Q&A segment during the webinar. At the end of the session, participants should be able to:
- Describe performance improvement based on Joint Commission’s Performance Improvement (PI) chapter.
- Describe concepts learned about fundamental performance improvement principles and methodologies within post-acute settings.
- Identify at least one new practice applicable to performance improvement within post-acute settings.
The webinar also offers 1.0 Continuing Education (CE) credit for those who:
- Individually register for the webinar.
- Listen to the live webinar in its entirety. Only those listening live during the session will be eligible to receive credit.
- Complete a post-program evaluation/attestation. The program evaluation/attestation link will be sent to your registered email after the webinar.
The webinar recording and slides will be available approximately two hours after the session concludes.
- Dateline @ TJC — Implementation and Effectiveness of Suicide Prevention Policies: This is the final installment in a blog series on National Patient Safety Goal (NPSG) 15.01.01: Reduce the Risk of Suicide. Throughout this series, we have highlighted surveyors’ observations on various elements of performance (EPs) at accredited organizations. Earlier posts have discussed written policies and procedures for follow-up care of individuals at risk of suicide and suicide risk screening and assessment. This installment features conversation on EP 7: Monitor implementation and effectiveness of policies and procedures for screening, assessment, and management of patients at risk for suicide and take action as needed to improve compliance, writes Gina Malfeo-Martin, MSN, PMH-BC, Team Lead, Standards Interpretation Group, and Stacey Paul, MSN, PMHNP-BC, Project Director, Healthcare Standards Development.
- Ambulatory Buzz — Medication Management and Storage in Ambulatory Healthcare Settings: Arrangement of medications within a pharmacy and throughout the organization is key to reducing the chances of a medication error. According to American Society of Health System Pharmacists (ASHP), this means product arrangement should minimize unintended selection of the wrong product or dosage form. In ambulatory healthcare settings, it is not always so simple. Many do not have on-site pharmacies, so careful arrangement depends on the type of services offered at each individual location, writes Maura Naddy, Senior Associate Director, Standards Interpretation Group.