News briefs: Study participants needed; on-line benchmarking; ORYX deadline; nation's health care quality
News briefs
AAAHC seeks study participants
The Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care (AAAHC) of Wilmette, IL, is looking for organizations to participate in a study on atrial fibrillation and stroke prevention. This is the fourth in a series of studies conducted by the AAAHC’s affiliated Institute for Quality Improvement.
Participation is open to all ambulatory health care organizations and will examine patient history, patient understanding of the condition, and patient behaviors relative to atrial fibrillation and stroke prevention, as well as how providers use testing, health education, drug therapies, monitoring, and follow-up measures.
Participants receive a copy of the study, which will include characteristics of the best performing participants. Participation also meets AAAHC accreditation standards specified in Chapter 5 of the AAAHC’s accreditation handbook. To register for the study, call the institute at (847) 853-6079.
Home care gets on-line benchmarking
Outcome Concept Systems (OCS), a Seattle-based consulting firm, has a new on-line reporting and graphing option for clients who use its benchmarking program.
"Many of our clients are struggling to understand [the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) — formerly the Health Care Financing Administration — Adverse Event Reports] and comply with JCAHO [Joint Commis-sion on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations} and CHAP [Community Healthcare Accreditation Program in New York City] requirements," says OCS president Amanda Twiss. "At the same time, they are requesting more sophisticated benchmark reports and graphs for marketing and performance improvement activities," she says.
"By offering these new on-line features, we are helping clients understand and manage adverse events and proactively address the benchmarking requirements of JCAHO and CHAP. And the new graphs and report options are perfectly suited for marketing and other analyses," Twiss explains.
The new benchmark features include OCS’ Quality Tracking Report (QTR) that benchmarks individual agencies’ incidence of adverse events against industry norms. It provides expanded measures and aggregate data for all patients, regardless of payment source. Users also can benchmark against more specific compare groups, including system, state, national, and characteristic-based norms. Clients can drill down for a specific list of patients experiencing adverse events months before the information is available to CMS and surveyors. In addition, clients can generate their own confidential JCAHO Monthly Reports on-line via OCS’ secure benchmarking web site location, including compare and control charts.
On-line graphs for more than 400 of the measures are offered in OCS’ benchmarking program. With this new feature, agencies can graphically analyze their measures as compared to state, regional, and national norms, as well as comparisons of their own data against the norms of agencies with similar characteristics.
Hospitals gear up for ORYX data
The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health care Organizations in Oakbrook Terrace, IL, has put hospitals on notice that they have to start collecting ORYX core performance measurement data by July 1, 2002. The new time line was approved by the Joint Commission’s board of commissioners at its May meeting. The data are an extension of six months from the original target date. This timing is intended to allow hospitals and performance measurement systems sufficient time to plan and budget for activities related to the collection of core measure data. The time line is as follows:
• October 2001. The Joint Commission will release final technical specifications for initial measure sets.
• November 2001 to June 2002. Hospitals formally select core measure sets based on the health care services that they provide.
• July 2002. Hospitals begin data collection.
• January 2003. The Joint Commission receives first core measure data for the July 1 to Sept. 30, 2002, quarter.
The due date is four months from the end of the last month of the reporting quarter.
Health care quality needs a boost
When mainstream news outlets reported last month that nearly all physicians had witnessed a serious medical error, that was only part of the story. Those figures were part of a study conducted by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in Princeton, NJ, that also found 58% of health care providers and administrators think that health care in this country is "not very good" and four of five providers believe that fundamental change in the system is required.
When that study was released, an effort to effect that change was also announced. The Institute for Healthcare Improvement of Boston is managing the Pursuing Perfection program, designed to help hospitals and physician organizations to improve the quality of health care. Participants will be encouraged to deliver services accurately and correctly and at the right time, avoid services that are not helpful or cost-effective, prevent safety hazards and errors, and respect each patient’s unique needs and preferences.
Despite the dismal survey results, Donald M. Berwick, MD, IHI president and CEO, says he was encouraged that 29% of providers believe they can lead the charge in improving the system.
"Our aim is to help a small number of deeply committed health care organizations," he says. "We are very optimistic that the initiative participants will provide us with surprising and indeed thrilling examples of improvement, not generally thought possible in the world of health care. While the bad news is that errors are common and quality is doubted, the good news is that there is a strong cadre of providers out there who believe we can raise the bar for health care performance."
More than 220 physician and hospital organizations nationwide submitted grant applications outlining plans to participate in the project. Under the first phase of the program, up to 12 applicants will receive a seven-month, $50,000 planning grant to develop a detailed business plan on how they will implement their proposed improvements. Six of the 12 finalists will be selected to receive grants between $1.5 million and $3 million to support their work to improve the quality of health care. All applicants will be encouraged to share their information, strategies, and results through a virtual network, and all will have access to that network.
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