FACULTY
DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE
Training Manual
for Interdisciplinary Session Facilitators
Improving Quality
in our Healthcare System
Imogene Foster
Taken from Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st
Century (IOM REPORT BRIEF)
As discussed in Chapter
1, the American health care system is in need of major restructuring. This
will not be an easy task, but the potential benefits are great. To cross the
divide between today’s system and the possibilities of tomorrow, strong
leadership and clear direction will be necessary. As a statement of purpose for
the health care system as a whole, the committee endorses and adopts the
phrasing of the Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the
Health Care Industry (1998).
Recommendation 1: All health care
organizations, professional groups, and private and public purchasers should
adopt as their explicit purpose to continually reduce the burden of illness,
injury, and disability, and to improve the health and functioning of the people
of the United States.
It is helpful to translate this general
statement into a more specific agenda for improvement—a list of performance
characteristics that, if addressed and improved, would lead to better
achievement of that overarching purpose. To this end, the committee proposes
six specific aims for improvement. Health care should be:
· Safe—avoiding injuries to
patients from the care that is intended to help them.
· Effective—providing
services based on scientific knowledge to all who could benefit and refraining
from providing services to those not likely to benefit (avoiding underuse and
overuse
· Patient-centered—providing
care that is respectful of and responsive to individual patient preferences,
needs, and values and ensuring that patient values guide all clinical
decisions.
· Timely—reducing
waits and sometimes harmful delays for both those who receive and those who
give care.
· Efficient—avoiding
waste, in particular waste of equipment, supplies, ideas, and energy.
· Equitable—providing
care that does not vary in quality because of personal characteristics such as
gender, ethnicity, geographic location, and socioeconomic status.
Source: http://books.nap.edu/books/0309072808/html/40.html#pagetop
Imogene FosterEdD,
RN, LPC,
Associate Professor
and Coordinator of Rural Health Nursing Education
West Virginia
University School of Nursing
ifoster@hsc.wvu.edu