In another example of the old saw, “it's not the tool, it's how you use it,” the Journal of Quality and Patient Safety published a study ($20 full text) by the University Health System Consortium. A survey of 41 organizations to determine the organizational elements that predict successful performance improvement program and support change initiatives. […]
This story in Modern Healthcare explores hospital executive's growing passion for quality, and how to get it. In the world of mangement trends there seems to be a shift afoot away from Six Sigma/Lean Manufacturing (which reportedly has a 30% to 40% failure rate) to Kaizen and the Toyota Way.
Regardless of your choice of […]
The Washington Post has a nice story about Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle. It seems they've adopted the Japanese management concept of Kaizen, or continuous incremental improvement to streamline operations.
Like the Japanese automaker's plants, the glistening new cancer center here was designed around themes of high quality, super-efficiency and putting the customer first. Errors are […]
To date, I've chosen not to post about David Brailer and government involvement in driving greater health care IT adoption and standardization; these topics are really beyond medical device connectivity (although they are major drivers for additional device connectivity). However, this caught my eye.
Last fall, HHS issued an RFI for comments on how a national […]
The new Patient Safety Goals for 2006 are now on the JCAHO web site. The hospital goals for next year are more refinements of previous year's goals; there are no completely new goals. For next year, there is continued focus on “handoff” communications, meds safety, and falls.
Frost has released a new study titled US Medical Device Outlook. Their press release leads with what starts out like an expose on group purchasing organizations (GPOs).
“GPOs sign contracts — mostly long-term ones — with only a few medical device manufacturers, thereby blocking out the smaller companies and market entrants,” says Frost & Sullivan Research […]
This Harris survey provides a good overview of progress made in meds admin and technology adoption; there are no bombshells or epiphanies. Meds safety progress is charted with 72 percent of frontline registered nurses surveyed believing that medication safety has improved in their hospital over the last five years. Eighty percent of those nurses identified technology […]
