Some hospitals are sorry ORYX Plus is dead
Program’s premise was good, even if it lacked support
"It’s a real disappointment that ORYX Plus is being phased out," says Jenny Blair, vice president for quality services at Prince William Hospital in Manassas, VA. "We were looking forward to working further within the initiative."
She says she believes the Joint Commis sion was taking a valuable stand with ORYX Plus because part of its requirement was to publish participating facilities’ data and foster public accountability. "That’s something we believe in," she says.
Potomac Hospital in Woodbridge was another ORYX Plus-participating organization in Virginia. "They were collecting data under the IM [Indica tor Measurement] System," says Blair. "Like us, they regret the fact that the Joint Commission is withdrawing the program. It positively affected our competitive edge and helped our marketing because the Commission made information available for public display."
Elaine Vieira, manager of performance improvement and regulatory compliance at South County Hospital in Wakefield, RI, also is disappointed. "We’ve been pleased with the ORYX Plus project," she says. "We were enthusiastic about it from the start, and it’s been a satisfying experience. We’ve been happy with our reports, and we’ve improved processes based on our data from one quarter to the next."
Vieira says the people at her facility understand JCAHO’s dilemma: "there simply wasn’t enough participation to continue. We look forward to moving ahead with core measures. Having had the experience with ORYX Plus positions us well to evolve into the core measures project. The categories are going to be similar. We have our processes down, and we know what we need to do to get through a lot of indicators."
Rhode Island has been selected to be one of two states in the Joint Commission’s Early Bird project to come up with core measures. This will put the state a year ahead of others in implementing a core measures project.
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