Premier cites key lessons of project
Premier has conducted site visits with top performing hospitals to document best practices and share them with other participants and the rest of the health care industry. These site visits have revealed that the improvements necessary to achieve top performance need not be onerous, expensive, or dependent on technology.
Key lessons learned to date include the following:
- Leadership and culture are critical: The top-performing hospitals make quality of care the core value of their institution and compete in the marketplace on quality. Quality is the priority of the executive team, which actively engages physicians in the process of quality improvement. These hospitals prioritize the implementation of best practice methodologies and dedicate resources to ensure their success.
- Clinicians need to be engaged in actively harvesting and disseminating best practices: Clinicians need to be engaged in quality improvement activities guided by improvement methodologies and change theory, based on valid data. Established, evidence-based best practices are quantified and documented, and collaboration forums are used to exchange real results. Top performers actively implement these practices and track progress over time.
- A focus on process improvement is key: Effective improvement strategies begin with evaluation and improvement of care delivery processes; the state of technology infrastructure is not necessarily a barrier to process improvement. Simple solutions such as posting signs on operating suite doors stating "Stop. Has pre-op antibiotic been given?" can lead to significant improvements in outcomes. Improving ineffective processes, regardless of technological sophistication, has led to significant quality improvement among the diverse hospitals participating in the project.
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